Medicare MSN vs eMSN and appeals

[sengsational]

Another question from a Medicare novice.

It looks like you can switch to seeing MSN's on the web site -OR- get paper copies...not both. I wondered if having the MSN's online only had an advantage of being more timely. Does anyone have any experience ordering MSN's with eMSN enabled, vs ordering MSN's with paper MSN?

The MSN that was generated for my claims processed between 3/27 and 6/18 seems to be missing a bunch of claims that I see on the medicare.gov site. I wasn't going to worry too much about that, but there's one claim, obviously processed between those dates that doesn't show on the MSN. And if it's not on the MSN, you can't appeal it. So I ordered an MSN for that claim, specifically, by calling. Apparently calling is the same thing as clicking the "Order MSN" button on the web site. That was early July and I haven't seen anything yet. When I asked, they said it was created on 7/12. OK, where is it then? I'm just supposed to be patient. How patient? They confirmed there's no way for me to check the status of an MSN order online, and all they can tell me is when it was created. You would think this is the government or something.

 

[sengsational]

And in today's mail, hehe!

 

[oldtimer]

Did it also show up online?

 

[sengsational]

I have not got my account configured to get MSN's online. That's one of my questions...if configured for electronic, do they show up faster. They take away paper, which I don't really want to give up, so there would need to be a significant improvement in timing of data access to justify the change.

To continue the story... The "regular" MSN for July contained the claim I plan to appeal. In the same envelope was the requested MSN for just that one claim. The service was in April, but wasn't on the June MSN, so I thought I'd never get the MSN for it. But it then appeared on the July MSN. Seems like some fairly haphazard things going on at CMS.

 

[rodi]

I'm not on medicare yet (2 years to go)... I had to look up what MSN was.

For those wondering, - it's medicare summary notice. Apparently it comes out every 3 months and shows all your medicare A and B charges.

"Medicare Summary Notice" (MSN)

 

[sengsational]

Ah, yeah, sorry to the Medicare uninitiated. It's otherwise known as an EOB (explanation of benefits) in health insurance parlance.

And, annoyingly, it's significantly delayed, but is the official document that may or may not agree with what's on the web site.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

Now it makes sense, but I had no idea what this meant and I am on Medicare