I know that this requirement has been mentioned before in previous posts, but I am not being successful in my searches to find that discussion. Divvi, I think you might know about this and, I'm sure, many others. If I need to get this done, I should know more about my requirements. Thanks in advance
Medicare has a form that your DH would sign authorizing you to obtain medicare info on him. If you don't have that, they can't give you any information. You can get the form on-line, or call them for it. They won't accept just your DPOA. It has to be on their form.
Are you thinking of a HIPAA form? That's what you need to get info about someone from his doctor. You can search 'hipaa forms' and get a free one on-line or his doctor should have them. I got one at the hospital just before I had an emergency appendectomy for my children to get info. Or search 'hipaa' and get all the info about it, it's a govt requirement to preserve a patient's privacy but hard on family if they don't have one.
Thank you, Vickie. To be honest there are so many rules & regulations, forms & agencies about so many things, medical and more that it confuses this old head. Sometimes, in today's world, I feel like I'm in a foreign country, like Belgium, trying to find my way around with a map of Japan. But just give me time, eventually I get there.
You can do this all online if you and your spouse sign up at mymedicare.gov. I enrolled DH witha all the pertinent info and there is a tab which auhorizes medicare to give medical information to other parties. I authorized (on DH's behalf) that I should be able to inquire/receive info on his behalf and also authorized my sister who is his "caregiver" should I die. I was also able to designate who I wanted when I signed up on mymedicare.gov for me. You can also sign up for coordination of benefits if you have a secondary medical insurer so you don' have to submit a paper copy of the medicare payment/eob. It's all electronic.
I retired to take care of Kathryn last July 1st. At that time my insurance and Medicare should have switched making Medicare the primary for Kathry and my BCBS secondary. That did not happen so I called medicare and asked them to make the switch and was taol I could not make it because I was not listed as the Payee representitive with Social security. I called social security and got an appointment and went down to their office and did all the paper work to be the payee representitive for Kathryn and now medicare will do anything I ask no problem.
It was really easy to do and all I had to do was wait ten days and call everybody that was having problems getting paid and have them all resend their bills to medicare. So far there have been no more problems. If your spouse is getting social security for disability make sure you are listed as the payee representative. It helped us.
Thanks for mentioning the payee representitive aspect. I am my wife's payee representitive so it is nice to know I am set up to deal with Medicare, in case we ever use it.
I filled out this form: https://www.medicare.gov/MedicareOnlineForms/PublicForms/CMS10106.pdf I had my husband sign it and mailed it in. It says it is good indefinitely, so I figured that is something I can do now while he can still sign to avoid problems in the future. It can also be filled out by someone with a power of attorney.
I am not his representative payee, no one has ever told me I should be (and SS knew I was enrolling him in SS disability). I just signed in to mymedicare.gov as though I was him and made the assignments for HIPPA info and supplemental insurance on line. Since I had DPOA if they came after me I at least had that as a legal document (which they don't recognize).
LFL, no one ever told me either I had to be his representative payee. I also signed into mymedicare.gov like you did and never had a problem. I had a DPOA also and was never asked for it by anyone.
I also signed DH up on mymedicare.gov and listed myself as the person that they could give information to. Then I did it for myself and listed DD who lives with us as the person for myself. I didn't see any place to list a second person if the first should die.
When I first called Medicare the person told me to fax them a copy of the DPOA witch I did and nothing happened so I called back and the second person told me they do not accept DPOAs and that I had to be the representative payee in order to make any changes at all. The funny thing is they wanted to speak to Kathryn on the phone so she could approve it. Had I known that a head of time I could have had one of my friends wives approve for me to do anything that needed to be done. She would have had to answer some questions but with me there she could have no problem. It amazed me they would take a voice over the phone over a DPOA. I would recommend that everyone do the paperwork to become the Representative Payee as soon as possible. Don't wait until they say you need to be. They will want to see that DPOA that Medicare doesn't take.
I don't believe anything that a social security employee says.... When Claude turned 65, we went to the SS office. Even tho he was a retired federal employee (army and Public Health Service - 35 yrs), he had worked some under social security. The first office told us that because he was a retired federal employee, he was not eligible for social security or Medicare Part A or B. Since this was before the computer era, we believed what they said. Someone told us they thought everyone was eligible for at least Part A, so we went to an office in another town. We were told the same thing. We had health insurance so we didn't pursue it.
He continued to work and paid into SS until he was 75. We knew more by this time, so he applied again. This time, he was told he could get a small social security check ($275 after Part B was taken out) BUT since he did not apply for Medicare when he was 65, there was a substantial penalty for each year he waited over age 65. It amounted to $58 a month more than I paid or 37.6% more. Since we didn't have proof of what those employees said, he was stuck and had to pay.
SS told me I did not need to be his representative payee. But, as others have said, you talk to different people and get different answers. I did send off the medicare paper today.