Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about Medicare, along comes a surprise loophole.

There are a great many seniors who take pride in knowing all about their Medicare plans and what they do for them. While they may not have the minute details about how their plans work, they have a fairly good sense of what is covered and what is not. However, there are some "other" things that are coming out of the woodwork lately that are taking our elders by surprise.

Consider the story of a senior living in Texas who was quite taken aback that neither Medicare nor his Medicare supplement insurance policy paid a drug bill for him. The bill was for self-administered drugs for two days while the senior was hospitalized. The bill came to a little over $200 and the patient could not understand why Medicare would not pick up the costs.

The main problem here is that since Medicare Part D went into effect, any medications given to someone while they were in a hospital are treated differently. Not only that, but they are usually not covered either. It’s possible that in some circumstances they may be covered, but generally speaking, they are not. Here is how that works. If Medicare itself will not fork out on a claim for medical service, then the supplement insurance policy does not either. Why? The supplement won’t pay out because that is what it does; it "supplements" the cost of medical services approved by Medicare.

The other thing that seniors need to know is that this modification in how self-administered drugs are charged is directly as a result of a change in the federal government’s policies about Medicare and seniors. It did not happen because of the hospital or the insurance agency they bought Medicare and Medicare supplements from.

This new method to charging for self-administered drugs is part of the whole pattern of change coming in 2010 and beyond in Medicare. In essence what this accomplishes is to shift the price tag from the federal government back on to seniors. There are others services that are also being disallowed such as pelvic and breast exams, and pap smears if they are done outside the time period Medicare has set as a federal regulation. Couple this with a relatively recent report from the government that is now suggesting that women don’t get mammograms until they are 50 rather than the current 40.

While this may panic seniors into thinking that the government’s solution to cutting health care costs is to deny them health care, there are other viable alternatives. Find out what these are by talking to a knowledgeable local health insurance agent who understands that seniors need to have a plan that addresses their needs. With the advent of new plans coming in June of 2010, there are certainly other Medicare supplement plans that, when combined with Medicare, will do what seniors need them to do – provide good coverage that works for them.