Medicare offers smoking cessation counseling to its beneficiaries. It may be your year to make a no-smoking New Year’s Resolution, and Medicare can help.
Medicare Smoking Cessation Counseling
Medicare offers 8 smoking cessation counseling sessions for anyone who uses tobacco. These sessions are available 8 times every twelve months.
Tobacco Cessation Costs
It may cost you $0. How is that? Well, if you don’t have any illness or complications from tobacco, then your face-to-face counseling sessions are free, as long as your counselor accepts Medicare assignment.
If you have complications from smoking like emphysema, COPD, or lung cancer, you pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount for the doctor’s services and the Part B deductible, as well as if you are an outpatient in a hospital setting, you also pay the hospital a copayment.
Ways to Pay for Smoking Counseling
If you happen to be among those who pay for your deductible, coinsurance, and copays for smoking and tobacco cessation counseling, there are a few ways to pay for this service:
- Pay out of pocket for your services
- Apply for Medicaid to help pay with your services
- Get a Medigap policy that covers deductibles, coinsurance, and copays*
*Remember that in most states Medigap policies offer guaranteed issuance only during your initial open enrollment period.
To learn more services covered by Medicare and ways to pay for them, call the number above or contact Senior65.com.