Are you unsure whether or not Medicare will cover your medical test or service? This new app released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will help you out. The app, called "What's Covered," will determine if a specific medical item or service is covered by Medicare.
The app gives you accurate cost and coverage information right on your smart phone. It offers the general cost, coverage, and eligibility details for items and services covered by Medicare Part A and Part B. You can search or browse to learn what is covered and what is not covered; how and when to get covered benefits; and basic cost information. You can also get a list of covered preventive services.
You can quickly see whether Medicare covers your service while you are at the doctor's office, hospital, or anywhere else. You can even use the app when you're offline to get reliable Medicare information.
The app is available for free on the App Store and Google Play Store. It is part of the CMS agency’s eMedicare initiative, which launched in 2018. The goal of this initiative is to give beneficiaries convenient access to accurate information about their benefits in a way that makes sense. CMS is focused on "modernizing Medicare and empowering patients with information they need to get the best value from their Medicare coverage," says CMS Administrator Seema Verma.
Understanding what is covered by Medicare is one of the most frequently asked and searched questions. “There are approximately 15 million page views annually for coverage-related content on Medicare.gov and 1-800 MEDICARE receives over 3 million coverage-related calls each year,” according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services agency. This app should help streamline information and make it more readily available for patients.
Source: Health Data Management and Medicare.gov