We miss our Mayo Phoenix... Ever since Medicare kicked in

WELL WELL WELL... STOP THE PRESSES!!! I have JUST received this reply to my question to Mayo Portal from Patient Account Services. Apparently medicare billing has changed since my 2020 TKR!

"Good afternoon Paul,
Thank you for contacting Mayo Clinic Patient Account Services. We apologize for the delay in responding to your message.

We understand your frustration as we were frustrated as well with Medicare billing. Previously, Medicare paid patient directly; however, this has changed and Medicare now pays Mayo Clinic directly after they receive the claims from Mayo Clinic so you will not have the same frustration as you did a couple of years ago. If you have additional questions, please call Patient Accounts at 844-217-9591.. "

@SusanEllen66
@vic83
Yes we have been Arizona residents for over 5 years. We were grandfathered in to Mayo with medicare when we turned 65 and went on TRADITIONAL, NOT ADVANTAGE MEDICARE, .because we were patients before we turned 65.
We are still in their system. I have made a dermatologist annual screening appointment with them to see how the billing will go.
But I am DEFINITELY not getting anything serious done with Mayo unless and until this billing catastrophe is resolved.

Funny no AZ major medical people have chimed in.

Yup. World-class care, but ONLY if you have world-class INSURANCE.

Been going here 10 years. Once I started on Medicare, you get charged for every little thing. And Medicare will not pay beyond very limited services. Expect LOTS of hidden charges.

Mayo says they will accept Medicare, but as I understand it, that's a real narrow interpretation on their part. They very clearly discourage people over 65.

And after going here for two more years while on Medicare, I thought to ask before treatments as to cost of services, what's covered by Medicare, etc. None of the Mayo providers could provide an answer! Only "make sure you sign that form saying you're responsible for anything your insurance doesn't pay for. " Welcome to open-ended charges. Who does that when hiring someone? Do you give ANY professional carte blanche when billing you for services???

Oh well, time to look for another provider.

Yup. World-class care, but ONLY if you have world-class INSURANCE.

Been going here 10 years. Once I started on Medicare, you get charged for every little thing. And Medicare will not pay beyond very limited services. Expect LOTS of hidden charges.

Mayo says they will accept Medicare, but as I understand it, that's a real narrow interpretation on their part. They very clearly discourage people over 65.

And after going here for two more years while on Medicare, I thought to ask before treatments as to cost of services, what's covered by Medicare, etc. None of the Mayo providers could provide an answer! Only "make sure you sign that form saying you're responsible for anything your insurance doesn't pay for. " Welcome to open-ended charges. Who does that when hiring someone? Do you give ANY professional carte blanche when billing you for services???

Oh well, time to look for another provider.

Sorry to hear you have insurance issues.
I have Medicare A and B, with AARP/United Healthcare (Med B, plan G). I have had extensive testing, including a cardiac catherization at MC in Rochester. I do have a higher premium than other Med B plans, but my out of pocket is very minimal.
Like many types of insurance, e.g. auto, generally the higher the premium the less deductible and out of pocket cost, and vise versa.
You may benefit from talking with trained health care insurance expert. I have one I can talk with at my financial planners office. AARP my also offer some resources.
Good luck, be well.

Hi Paul and welcome, I too have been in a roller coaster ride when I was originally on BCBS federal which did well with my original transplant year but became out of network after the first year. I had complications unrelated to the transplant itself but stemed from the reduced immusupresion and the recurrence of viruses which required an expensive treatment. So because BCBS was now out if network I would receive the check from BCBS and cash it then send a personal check to Mayo with the Eob and figured it would be applied to the appropriate bill. But this didn't happen and I was now treated as self pay. Well this raised the cost to me of everything. I'm still in negotiations on this matter now 3 years later but it appears it will work out in my favor.
This all happen in 2019 and in 2020 I started getting my National Guard pension which came with it a secondary insurance of Tricare which is an accepted insurance by Mayo but because of the BCBS as primary it fell to secondary. So this added to the confusion as tricare wanted to know what BCBS paid before they would pay anything. But with BCBS not sending EOB to Mayo directly, Mayo billed tricare directly without the amount that BCBS paid and was denied on that bases.
Thats the nightmare I've been going thru for over 2 years now. Finally after many phone calls my account just this year has been frozen to evaluate what happen. I've paid about 13,000 our of pocket and figure they owe me some back. Now realize I had a very expensive transplant of close to a million dollars so I'm not upset to pay some. But in my case I have insurance that will pay but needed additional information which wasn't provided. So in my case it a matter if resubmitting the correct information to the secondary insurance and receiving the money they would normally pay, thus reducing what I owed.
Now I ended up working with Lisa in the Social Workers dept to help navigate this whole area and She helped me alot to get to the right person in the finance dept who has been very helpful in figuring out how to fix this. He is still working on it in my case but it's in the finial stages now.
So to wrap up, I now have Medicare A&B with Tricare for life as secondary and haven't paid anything out of pocket since those became effective. Hope that helps and good luck with your situation. Keep at it is my advice.
Blessings

@danab,
We are still trying to resolve the out-of-network billing issue we have and the dismissive response we got from Billing is that we need to work it out with our insurance! However, our insurance says Mayo has to submit the claim properly in order for the member to get the in-network benefit covered under our plan!! May I ask who is your contact at Mayo who is helping you resolve your billing issues at Mayo? I'd like to get in touch with him/her to see they can possibly help us with our billing issue. Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!

Sorry to hear you have insurance issues.
I have Medicare A and B, with AARP/United Healthcare (Med B, plan G). I have had extensive testing, including a cardiac catherization at MC in Rochester. I do have a higher premium than other Med B plans, but my out of pocket is very minimal.
Like many types of insurance, e.g. auto, generally the higher the premium the less deductible and out of pocket cost, and vise versa.
You may benefit from talking with trained health care insurance expert. I have one I can talk with at my financial planners office. AARP my also offer some resources.
Good luck, be well.