People tend to like their Medicare Advantage plans — until they don’t. Consider the case of Rose LaChapelle, who says the Medicare Advantage plan that was supposed to provide care for her 92-year-old mother has failed her now that she needs it most. After getting COVID.
LaChapelle’s mother, Vincentina Zarumba, was hospitalized with a severe bowel blockage. “Her health and her cognitive abilities declined after that,” LaChapelle, 69, of Sarasota, Fla., recalls.
“She lived alone and was hospitalized five or six times within a year and a half. Basically, her Medicare Advantage insurance ..
. refused to pay for her to go to a rehab facility after each hospitalization.” Declining mentally, Zarumba took the insurance company’s refusal to pay as validation of her own fitness to go home.
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With each hospitalization, Zarumba grew weaker, LaChapelle says. Now, she’s in an assisted living facility where she, again, has been denied physical therapy despite having leg pain. “I don't think that these insurance companies know how they are affecting the people that are a lot older,” LaChapelle says.
The promise of Medicare Advantage plan.
