Patient Advocate Services in New Hampshire, Covered by Medicare

Yes. Since January 2024, Medicare pays for professional healthcare navigation through Principal Illness Navigation and Community Health Integration services. Medicare Part B covers about 80% of the cost, and a supplemental (Medigap) plan typically covers the rest, so most New Hampshire members pay $0. We confirm exactly what your coverage looks like before your first session, and there are no surprise bills.

Yes, all ten counties. The service is fully virtual, delivered by phone, video, and secure messaging, so it works the same in Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Derry, Dover, Rochester, Portsmouth, Keene, Laconia, Lebanon, Berlin, and every town from the Seacoast to the North Country. There is no office to travel to.

Advocates work virtually and are matched to you, not to a zip code. What matters is that your advocate is the same person every time (One Advocate, For Life), knows New Hampshire's programs like ServiceLink SHIP counseling from the Bureau of Elderly and Adult Services, the Medicare Savings Programs New Hampshire Medicaid runs with an asset test, and the Choices for Independence (CFI) long-term-care waiver, and gives you their direct phone, email, and text, so you never start over with a stranger in a call queue.

Yes, and New Hampshire is better than most states here. Federal law does not guarantee Medigap to people who qualify for Medicare under 65 through disability, but New Hampshire was among the first states to require it: every insurer that sells Medicare Supplement policies must also offer all of them to under-65 disability beneficiaries, with a six-month guaranteed-issue window that starts when you enroll in Part B. Insurers are allowed to charge under-65 enrollees a higher premium, so the price can be steep, but the right to buy is protected — and once you turn 65 they can no longer charge you the higher under-65 rate. A fresh six-month Medigap Open Enrollment Period also opens at 65 for every plan at standard rates. Timing those windows is where an advocate helps most.

No. Unlike California, Oregon, Maryland, or neighboring states with newer rules, New Hampshire has no annual birthday rule (a birthday-rule provision was removed from the bill during the legislative process). Your one guaranteed window without medical underwriting is the six-month Open Enrollment Period that starts the month you are both 65 and enrolled in Part B; New Hampshire's separate under-65 disability guarantee is the state's real Medigap advantage. Outside those windows, switching plans is medically underwritten, so timing matters, and it is exactly the kind of deadline an advocate watches for you.

Those are New Hampshire Medicaid long-term-care programs. The Choices for Independence (CFI) waiver helps people who meet a nursing-facility level of care get personal care, homemaking, adult day services, home-delivered meals, and respite so they can stay home instead of entering a facility. CFI has an active waiting list, and your application date sets your place in line, so applying early matters. Its self-direction option lets the person receiving care hire and pay the caregiver they choose, including a family member such as an adult child (but not a spouse or a legally responsible relative), with a financial management service handling payroll and taxes. New Hampshire does not have a PACE program, so CFI and the ServiceLink network are the main home-and-community paths. Contact ServiceLink at 1-866-634-9412 to start. Our advocacy is billed through Medicare, so we focus on the Medicare side: bills, appeals, appointments, coverage questions. For dual-eligible families that split works well: you manage the caregiving, and your parent's advocate handles the Medicare paperwork.

ServiceLink (reachable at 1-866-634-9412) is New Hampshire's free Medicare counseling network, run through the Aging & Disability Resource Centers by the New Hampshire Bureau of Elderly and Adult Services (BEAS) with trained, commission-free counselors, and it is excellent for one-off questions like comparing plans during Open Enrollment. Understood Care is different: a dedicated advocate who does the work itself, makes the calls, files the appeals, untangles the bills, and stays with you month after month, covered by Medicare. The two are complementary, and we often point our own members to ServiceLink counselors for enrollment-season plan comparisons.

In New Hampshire we are in-network for Original Medicare (traditional fee-for-service Medicare); UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plans (~34% of New Hampshire MA members); Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Elevance) Medicare Advantage plans (~16% of New Hampshire MA members); Cigna Medicare Advantage plans (~2% of New Hampshire MA members). Together that covers roughly 83.2% of New Hampshire's Medicare beneficiaries. Market-share data: 2024. Plan networks change, so we confirm exactly what your plan covers before any work begins - no surprise bills.