jmarxen said:
Is your Kaiser Permenante coverage a supplement to Medicare or is it considered an individual policy where you aren't covered by Medicare? What states do they offer coverage? We're on the east coast and would hate to travel to the west coast if that is all they serve for regular visits. I would hate to treat all visits as an emergency visit.
I would think the $5 for the flash is cheap providing it's a 2GB or 4GB in size. Do they charge you for updating the flash? How much (# visits or amount of medical data) does it hold?
Kaiser administers medicare. Whatever comes out of my SS check goes to Kaiser, plus they are also my supplemental -- currently called their Senior Advantage plan. I was hospitalized in AZ several years back for 3 days. A number of the bills came directly to me - though my only expense was the cost of each overnight stay. One of the bills came from a doctors group that had attended me from outside the hospital - and was for something like $950. I contacted Kaiser, they contacted the group, and informed them that the medicare limit for that service was something like $250. Their response was, OK, we'll write the rest of it off. So when an emergency service from outside the Kaiser plan is needed, Kaiser oversees it as would medicare.
Kaiser Permanente is located in nine states and the District of Colombia -- California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, and Virginia.
Can't imagine needing a 4GB card for a medical record. Mine is 1GB and so far my entire medical record is only about 130KB in size. I have looked at it and it is very detailed. If I recall, there is no charge to update the card. They just stick it into a USB port and go click click.
The other thing I like about KP is that my primary care physician controls my treatment. He has a computer in each exam room that he turns to to set up any specialized services he/she deems necessary. Or, if the specialist/surgeon needs followup, they turn to their computer and set it up.
>> I would hate to treat all visits as an emergency visit.
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Hope you didn't misread that. An emergency must be just that. I am given some travel forms that to use in that case. However, so far I have just given the out of plan hospital my Kaiser HMO plan card. Also, just to be on the safe side, I always call Kaiser prior to my emergency visit, tell them what is going on, and have them tell me what to do. Of course, if I was unable to do that, am sure they would consider that an emergency.