Medicare Supplement Plan N vs. G for 2025

You might've heard about Medicare Supplement Plan N, how you could save a little money, and maybe you could save a little money. For my money, I'm still going with Medicare Supplement Plan G over Plan N. A lot of people don't know this, but doctors can charge more than what Medicare pays. About one in 10 doctors, it's typically specialists, like your kidney doctor, your nephrologist, or anesthesiologist, the high-level specialist. They look at the paltry amount that Medicare pays, and they're like, huh, can I get more? Yes, they can. If they don't accept Medicare assignment, which they take whatever Medicare pays, they're allowed to charge 15%. Now, it's only 15% more, but they went to school for 12 years or something. They want to get more, so they do not accept what Medicare pays. Now, if you have a Plan F, you have a Plan G, not a problem. It will cover that. It'll cover those doctors, and you'll never have to mess with an extra out-of-pocket bill. You're going to pay for your supplement. If you have a G, you're going to pay your monthly premium. You have your annual deductible, and that's it. You don't have copays. You don't have coinsurance. There's no other costs, but if you have Plan N, you would have to pay Medicare excess, this extra 15% above what Medicare approves if, and that's a hard one, if you go to a doctor that charges it. First of all, you have some control there. If you want to get a Plan N, it's typically $30 to $40 a month cheaper than a Plan G. I used to be a bigger fan of Plan N because G goes up about, we're expecting 10% for 2025, and N would go up, sometimes it was going up 0% a year. Sometimes it was 1% or 3%, so I was like, ooh, that's nice. But now N is going up about the same rate as Plan G, about 9% to 10% a year. So you're not going to save that in your premium. You do have to pay $20, up to $20, if you see a doctor on Plan N. So if you're saving $30 to $40 a month, let's say you save $40, but you go to the doctor three times, you have to pay $20 for each visit, that's $60, but there was no savings there. Plus, you've set yourself up that if you do go to a doctor that charges this extra fee, you would have to pay that out of your pocket, that extra 15%. Again, a lot of times it's the anesthesiologist. So let's say I get referred by my doctor to go get surgery for bunions. So I check to see if the bunion doctor accepts Medicare assignment. He does, we're good. Most people don't even think about the anesthesiologist. You don't see that guy until you're on the table and he comes in and goes, hi, bye, right? But then you get a bill for $200. That could be your Medicare excess. A little bit of a surprise. I'm not that, that worried about it, but it's just something that's easily avoided with the Plan G. The plan, another difference for a Plan N is if you go to the ER, you would have to pay a $50 copay. Now, if you get admitted to the ER, you know, you go in there thinking you have a heart attack and then you have a heart attack and they keep you overnight, they waive that $50. But a Plan N is $20 to see a doctor, any doctor. So it's not like an Advantage Plan where you have a network and you want to go to certain doctors in certain hospitals. You can go to any doctor, but you want to go to doctors that accept Medicare assignment. So you don't have to pay extra on Plan N. Now in some states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, there's maybe eight states that the state law does not allow doctors to charge more than what Medicare pays. So if you do want an N, those are one of the good states to buy it in. You don't have to worry about that. But if you buy it in, say in Ohio and you're traveling out of state, that's where you could get hit with the Medicare excess charges again. So for my money, I'm going with Plan G, less moving parts, more predictable, and it's only going to cost me about 30, 40 bucks more a month. But everybody's different. I want you to be educated about the options out there. We don't care which plan you buy. We want you to be educated and feel comfortable with the plan you buy. If you need our help, our company, The Medicare Family, we're licensed in all 50 states. Our families helped thousands of people over the last 45 years, and we'd love to help you. You can book an appointment on our website, TheMedicareFamily.com. Thanks. If you like this video, you might really like this video. Check it out. And we'd appreciate if you subscribe to our channel so you never miss a great video. We put out one every week. Check in the description below this video for a link to our cheat sheet on Social Security and Medicare. And you can also give us a comment. If you have a specific question, always feel free to call us or email us at TheMedicareFamily.com.