Medicare Secondary Payer

The Federal Government has rules for deciding when Medicare pays your health care bills for Medicare-covered services and when other types of insurance must pay first. This process is called determining the primary and secondary payers. A primary payer is the insurance company or program that pays benefits first. A secondary payer is the insurance company or program that pays a portion or all of the remaining charges not covered by the primary payer.

When is Medicare a Secondary Payer?

  • Working Aged
  • Disabled People
  • People with Permanent Kidney Failure
  • Accidental Injury
  • Worker's Compensation/Black Lung
  • Veteran's Administration Benefits
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Your Medicare Intermediary

This information has been prepared to help explain Federal requirements for Medicare as a secondary payer for health care benefits. By identifying primary and secondary payers, your claims can be processed more quickly.

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Helpful MSP Tips

This Helpful Tips section is designed to help you with your claims process as you file for secondary costs to be paid by Medicare.  While this is not an exhaustive list, we do hope you will find it useful. 

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Page modified:August 10, 2007