If he's 100% VA disabled, he should be covered by the VA and do all his routine medical stuff through them. He should probably sit down with a patient representative from the VA and go over things with them. The VA, to my knowledge, doesn't routinely transfer patients to other hospitals.
Agreed - but sometimes they don't have room to admit someone and diveret them elsewhere. It happened to me twice for ER services - once I was diverted from the VA ER to another ER, and then admitted - stayed 4 days. The VA covered all costs. The second time I was again diverted to another ER, was admitted and stayed 1 day then transferred to the VA for another 2 days. VA covered all costs again.
Patient reps from the VA tell him about his coverage by the VA but seem unwilling to discuss Medicare (or any other insurance) in terms of answering "should I get it/do I need it if I'm 100% disabled?" Seems they are afraid of crossing some line related to telling someone what insurance to get or not get.
I'm trying to figure out what care might not be covered by VA that he would need Medicare for. So far I come up empty - specialty care based on his disability, routine stuff (flu shots, annual check-up), ER care based on his disability or not, and ancillary care (eye exams, dental, podiarty if he gets an ingrown nail & can wait long enough for an appointment) all seem to be available based on his 100% rating.
If that's right, the only reason to sign up for Medicare Part A would be to avoid a penalty for not getting it when he is first eligible - but why would he need it anyhow? The chance of him losing his disability rating is so close to zero that he possibly could go the rest of his life without applying for it because he "needed" it.
Would the VA be able to pass along some of the costs of care to Medicare if he were hospitalized?
If he also signed up for Part B would they be able to pass some of the medical care costs to Medicare?
(That sounds like just dipping the total cost out of two different taxpayer-filled buckets, plus the expense of figuring out which gets billed for what and for how much.)
Am I missing anything?
stay safe.
