Medicare Advantage Plans

I recently read that Costco is going into the Medicare business with Scan. Scan is a great company but one of many in each location in the country. In Las Vegas we have 84 different plans offered by 12 MAPD companies, of which Scan is one.

The Costco and Scan marriage seems on the surface to be a good thing, however, there are factors no one has mentioned in their response, on LinkedIn I didn’t notice any insurance brokers in that mix of responses and as one, I do have some things that no one is concerned about yet. As I mentioned before, Scan is a great company, but their Medicare Advantage plans are only HMO’s, meaning you must use one of their doctors and your prescriptions need to be in their formulary. What if your doctor is not in their network? Well, you need to change doctors. What if your medications are not in their formulary? You will need to change drugs.

Also, Scan currently does not offer a Medicare Supplement, at least not in Nevada, which means they are starting from scratch. As they gain clients, medical bills will climb and ultimately raise the rates. The benefit of a good and long-standing Medicare Supplement is they have lots of clients. Meaning when a catastrophic event happens to one or several of their clients, the rates will not spike and make their supplement not a good choice due to price. The larger the supplement plan is, the less catastrophic events will have on the rates. While I believe this might be a good thing there are many obstacles that need to be crossed before this becomes a great opportunity for clients, Costco and Scan. Also, what happens when a client’s drug or drugs are not on the Scan formulary? The two factors, doctors and drugs will make or break this offering from Scan and Costco.

Another question that needs addressing is will the salespeople assigned to Costco be licensed, which they must be, but more

important will they be allowed to offer other plans if Scan is not a good choice? The reason there are so many MAPD plans are doctor networks and drug formulary. Those questions need answering before the combination of Costco and Scan will be successful.

While I believe they will be successful, there are too many unanswered questions at this time that need addressing.

I hope this information is useful,and if anyone has questions, please contact me via phone or email and I will respond quickly.

Also, you may want to take a look at 2026 Medicare Information.

Len Barend, Broker

Cell: 702-250-2200

Email: len@insurance4unevada.com