What does Understood Care do?

Understood Care provides one-to-one patient advocacy for Medicare members and caregivers, including help with benefits, appointments, care coordination, medical bills, insurance questions, denials, and paperwork.

How can a patient advocate help with Medicare Advantage cuts in 2026: Don't lose your rides! — Understood Care?

Understood Care advocates help with medicare advantage cuts in 2026: don't lose your rides! — understood care by explaining options, organizing paperwork, coordinating care, and helping families understand Medicare coverage and next steps.

Does Understood Care work with Medicare patients?

Yes. Understood Care focuses on Medicare patients and their families, with advocates who understand Medicare, Medicare Advantage, care coordination, coverage rules, billing issues, and appeal pathways.

Understood Care is a virtual patient-advocacy service for Medicare members. Unlike case management or brokers, our advocates cover claims, appeals, and care. Compared to helplines, it is one-to-one.

Medicare Advantage cuts in 2026: Don't lose your rides!

Video · 2:50 · hosted by Deborah Hall

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Transcript

Auto-generated from the video, lightly edited for readability.

There's a lot of changes that are going to happen for 2026 in regards to what Medicare Advantage plans call extra benefits. That's your over- thecounter card, co-ay card, savings card, promotion card, whatever your payer calls it. A lot of these benefits are going to are being cut, reduced for 2026.

What this means is that right now, say you get 16 rides for transportation through your insurance. It means that maybe next year it'll be 12 or 10. And with these Medicare Advantage plans, they consider one way one of your rides. For a round trip to your doctor's office, that's two of your rides and it goes annual.

So, if you have 10, if you're eligible for 10 rides, that's five round trips. At Understood Care, what we do is we look at each county/ area senior and or disabled program that offers transportation to other places besides medical appointments for a greatly reduced or free charge.

And say one way will cost you a dollar depending on your income. you have to fall inside the income guidelines and that's how they determine the eligibility and the cost. It does involve you having your primary care provider filling out a form that you're unable to ride traditional public transportation, meaning you can't go to the bus station and sit there and then stand and walk and transfer and the steps and everything else.

So most of the time to be eligible there does have to be a qualifying medical problem. But arthritis, chronic pain, heart conditions, COPD, asthma, it's pretty broad as far as what conditions can be covered on these senior and disabled transportation options.

So where you may be limited with your payer next year and ongoing unfortunately we can look for other avenues of transportation for you through the county sometimes through different agencies at a greatly reduced and or free cost that will take you other places not just healthcare. and you set up a time.

We get the application from the county or the city or whoever it's through. We fill out most of it. Then we send it to your doctor for you. Have them fill it out and then either send it back to us so that we can submit it to the county or they submit it directly to the county in your area.

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Medicare Advantage cuts in 2026: Don't lose your rides!

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