Читать книгу Medicare For Dummies - Barry Patricia, Patricia Barry - Страница 29

While nobody wants to be morbid, people are increasingly seeing the sense of drawing up plans for care at the end of their lives — to ensure that their own wishes are respected at that time, even if they’ve reached a point of illness where they’re unable to say what they want. Discussing with a doctor how to make those plans is known as end-of-life counseling, or advance care planning.

The counseling session may include information on making an advance care directive — a legal document in which you specify whether or not you want to continue treatment or be revived if close to death — and on giving someone (a family member, friend, or legal advisor) legal power of attorney to make medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated. It may also provide information about hospice and palliative care (which I cover earlier in this chapter).

Medicare has provided coverage for such discussions since the beginning of 2016 as a benefit you can choose to receive. As it’s voluntary, nobody can require you to take it, and if you are offered it but don’t want it, you’re free to decline, without forfeiting the right to take part sometime in the future. You can decide if and when the time is right to receive counseling: while you’re still well, with no health issues; when you become ill; or while you’re receiving hospice or palliative care.

Under this benefit, Medicare pays your doctor (or another authorized medical professional, such as a nurse practitioner) for a first counseling session of up to 30 minutes, and for further 30-minute sessions if you need them. There is no limit on the number of sessions, and they can take place in a variety of settings — doctors’ offices, hospitals, and nursing facilities, for example. If the counseling takes place during an annual wellness visit (which I describe in the earlier section on preventive care), the counseling is free, provided that the doctor accepts assignment. If you schedule a separate session outside the wellness visit, you pay the usual Part B co-pay and the Part B deductible is applied, unless you have supplemental insurance that covers these expenses.