Guidance on choosing healthcare facilities and providers is frequently skewed by online search engines and paid advertisements, but real data doesn’t lie. Medicare collects star rating data and patient survey information to provide this valuable information for you to shop and compare.
Find and compare doctors, nursing homes, hospitals, home health, hospice care, and other providers in your service area at Medicare.gov. For example this link will compare the hospitals in a certain area by providing your zipcode: https://www.medicare.gov/care-compare/?providerType=Hospital&redirect=true. On Medicare.gov you can also search for a certain treatment to find out if Medicare covers it or not.
Another way to find out in advance if services are covered by Medicare is by downloading the “What’s Covered” app on Google Play or the App Store. The app uses keywords to bring up various items within a category. For example using the search word preventive will populate a list of services covered by Medicare in that category. The search word diabetic will populate the list of services and supplies covered by Medicare.
The app also helps you conduct a search to find covered equipment and supplies like infusion pumps, walkers, oxygen equipment, nebulizers, and more. Give it a try!
