By Jude Roberts, Staff Writer
“My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned
sixty, and that’s the law.”
Jerry Seinfeld
The snow flurries have yet begun to stick to the ground, and the
migratory pattern of the Great North American Snow Bird begins
to shift in a southerly and westerly course, making a path
towards California, Arizona, and most assuredly and especially,
Florida. The average “nesting” period for folks from Ohio,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey and even
the farthest reaches of Canada, will be about three to five
months. Once they’ve landed, some of their favorite past-times
include walking along sandy-white beaches that feel like talcum
powder underfoot, along with playing endless rounds of golf,
swimming in the warm Florida surf, and sunning themselves on
days that native Floridians consider cold and overcast. There
are migratory pattern alerts and updates for the I-95 and I-75
corridors, along with a daily RV count. Evidence of their
arrival has very obvious signs… increased traffic and full
restaurants can be spotted everywhere, as well as overcoats and
sweaters being molted for t-shirts and shorts.
The colder weather up north
also signals an increased workload for medical professionals
south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Medical aficionados
affectionately refer to the medical offices, hospitals, and
clinics of Florida, California and Arizona, as “Medicare Hubs.”
If you consider yourself to be a “snow bird” on the migratory
pattern towards one of these warmer states, you should know that
Medicare is hard at work, upgrading their database, in order to
help make life a little easier for seniors who become ill when
they’re away from home. The renovations to the database will
assist medical professionals and healthcare providers in
checking the status of insurance coverage for patients from
anywhere in the country. This will enable accurate confirmation
of addresses, including those addresses used for only part of
the year, easing the burden of proof of coverage for “snow
birds.” Although this “overhaul” with the database may worry
some about “Big Brother” being flagged to particular, individual
information, people are being assured that the new and improved
database will not include their medical records, maintaining
medical privacy. In fact, the long-range goal for these
improvements is for a single, comprehensive database to be
created for all those enrolled nationally, in both the Medicare
and Medicaid programs. Some of the worst problems of the past,
such as the inability to correctly track the coverage of
Medicare beneficiaries, as well as private insurance
responsibilities, and the crosschecking of dual eligibility of
persons entitled to both Medicare and Medicaid, will hopefully
be eradicated. While the improvements do not include the ability
for healthcare providers to directly access information, it does
allow them to send e-mails to Medicare regarding proof of
specific coverage. While this sounds like the confirmation
process will be no quicker than in the past, the fact that all
needed information is now in one database will decrease research
time considerably, making certain functions easier to track.
When you consider how much time and money will be saved in the
long run, the six million dollar price tag for a database
renovation of this size is relatively cheap.
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