HealthPartners is a health plan company that contracts with Medicare. They offer Medicare Advantage and Medigap plans to individuals that live in six Midwestern states.
HealthPartners offers Medicare Advantage plans for people who would like an alternative to original Medicare.
The plans provide the benefits of original Medicare’s parts A and B, while often having the choice of adding other benefits, such as prescription drug coverage. Extra benefits, such as vision or dental, may also be included.
HealthPartners also offer Medicare supplement insurance (Medigap) policies. Medigap plans can help cover original Medicare deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance.
Below, we introduce HealthPartners, examine the plans offered, and show how to find a plan.
We may use a few terms in this piece that can be helpful to understand when selecting the best insurance plan:
- Deductible: This is an annual amount that a person must spend out of pocket within a certain time period before an insurer starts to fund their treatments.
- Coinsurance: This is a percentage of a treatment cost that a person will need to self-fund. For Medicare Part B, this comes to 20%.
- Copayment: This is a fixed dollar amount that an insured person pays when receiving certain treatments. For Medicare, this usually applies to prescription drugs.
HealthPartners is a private insurance company that sells Medicare health plans.
HealthPartners’ plans are available to residents of six states in the Midwest. These states are:
- Minnesota
- Illinois
- Wisconsin
- Iowa
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
The company collaborates with other insurance companies to provide benefits. Some of their partners include:
- Unity Point Health
- Bellin Health
- Sanford Health
- ThedaCare
Medicare is a federal health insurance program run by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that serves people aged 65 and older. It also helps those younger than age 65 who have specified medical conditions.
Original Medicare is made up of Part A and Part B.
Depending on a person’s working history, they may not pay a monthly premium for Medicare Part A, but Part B monthly premiums apply to everyone. Other costs may include deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance.
Medicare Advantage plans are an alternative to original Medicare, which combine parts A and B with other benefits. Usually, Medicare Part D, which is for prescription medication, is also included, and many plans also include extra benefits that parts A and B do not offer.
HealthPartners has two types of Medicare Advantage plans. These plans are Preferred Provider Organization plans and Cost plans.
Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans
A PPO plan has a network of doctors, hospitals, and other health providers from which a person may choose to receive their care.
HealthPartners offers an array of PPO plans that serve different parts of the company’s six-state area. Benefits may vary according to the options a person chooses, but some include:
- prescription drugs
- gym membership
- routine eye exams
- routine hearing exams
- nursing hotline
- stop smoking program
Specific plans may offer extra benefits, such as coverage of acupuncture and preventive dental services.
Monthly premiums of HealthPartners Journey PPO plans range from $0 to $136.
Cost Plans
HealthPartners Cost plans are available in some parts of the six-state region, but not all. The company offers four options:
- Freedom Basic
- Freedom Vital
- Freedom Balance
- Freedom Ultimate
The Freedom plans have differing copayments and coinsurance, with monthly premiums ranging from $33.60 to $168.10.
Features of the plans vary but can include dental and hearing care. All four programs offer gym memberships, telephone visits with a nurse practitioner any time of day, or night, as well as some degree of emergency care across the United States.
According to HealthPartners, most of their Medicare Advantage plans include the prescription drug coverage that a person would expect from Medicare Part D.
If someone has enrolled in a plan that has this coverage, they are eligible for Medication Therapy Management (MTM).
The goal of MTM is to monitor a person’s medication routine for safety and effectiveness.
HealthPartners automatically enrolls an individual for MTM if:
- they take eight or more prescription drugs
- they have three or more of certain chronic conditions, such as diabetes, end stage renal disease, and congestive heart failure.
- they expect their drug cost to be more than $4,376 per year
Even if none of these conditions apply, an individual with one of the plans may enroll. MTM is free of charge.
Medigap plans are available to people who have original Medicare. They help pay for the deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance of parts A and B.
HealthPartners offers three supplement plan choices to residents in Minnesota, and some counties in Wisconsin. They include Basic, Extended Basic, and Medigap Plan N.
Medicare plans can be expensive, and those with limited resources may need extra help with healthcare costs.
Local and state governments run Medicaid plans, but the program follows federal guidelines.
Medicaid serves individuals of any age who have a low income, so someone with limited means may qualify for a Medicaid plan.
A person with Medicaid usually pays nothing for services that Medicare covers. However, sometimes they may have to pay a small copayment.
HealthPartners has a contract with the Minnesota Department of Human Services that specifies HealthPartners must offer Medicaid to residents of the state who have a HealthPartners Medicare Advantage plan.
The company has four Medicaid plans for individuals who meet specific qualifying criteria.
To enroll, a person may:
- call 800-657-3739
- visit their County Human Services office
- print, complete, and mail a paper form from the Minnesota Department of Health Services
If a person wants to look at the HealthPartners plans offered in their area, they can use a helpful search tool on the HealthPartners website.
From there, individuals can compare options by feature and price.
Medicare Advantage plans vary in costs among the companies that provide them. A person may wish to look at all programs available in their area that are offered by different companies.
An individual can compare all available plans on the Medicare website.
HealthPartners is a private health insurance company that serves six states in the Midwest. The company offers two types of Medicare Advantage plans.
HealthPartners also sells Medicare Supplement Insurance (Medigap) plans that help someone with original Medicare pay deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance.
In addition to this, they provide Medicaid for individuals with limited resources who may not be able to afford Medicare costs.
People looking for either Medicare Advantage or Medigap plans can visit the HealthPartners website to look at the plans available in their area.
Alternatively, individuals may also wish to compare prices with plans from all companies in their area.