EVERYONE KNOWS THAT swimming is the best form of exercise. Doctors beam at you when you tell them that you swim, friends nod encouragingly and say either that they swim or wish they did, the gym guy smiles encouragingly when you walk through the door.
Especially if you are 68. After 20 years away from the sport, I recently joined the C.V. Starr Community Center in Fort Bragg. The lap pool at this gym is world-class. Exquisite.
Indoors, designed by swimmers, eight wide lanes, with a nearby lazy river and water slide. An entirely different pool is devoted to leisure swimming, so all those people who use the pool to run in place or stand and chat are not in the way in my pool.
And the best part is … I pay nothing for my gym membership. Through a Medicare plan that covers a health and fitness program called SilverSneakers, my otherwise $45/month charge is free. Medicare has apparently recognized that the more older people exercise, the less likely they are to incur huge medical costs. Preventative activity (like swimming) is cheaper in the long run.
30 years swimming
In my freshman year of college, I somehow ended up swimming with the swim team. Not on the team, just in the one available lane in the pool at the same time. The coach, an Olympic medalist, watched for a minute before telling me that I had a terrible stroke. “Keep your head straight!” she hollered. “Your eyebrows should be at water level! Don’t slap the water!”
She straightened me out and even got me to alternate sides when I take a breath. I swam pretty religiously for 30 years after that. On one of those days in one of those years, my water broke after I got home for dinner. By morning my second son had arrived.
But then life and injuries got in the way, and I stopped. Twenty years is a long time not to swim. The first day at C.V. Starr I managed 10 laps. I told myself that the next day I’d ratchet it up to 12. Now I’ve topped out at 32 laps, 800 yards, 2,400 feet. I like the routine of counting laps and the release from the pressure of my younger years to swim harder and longer. I figure almost half a mile is good enough.
Many of the people who use the pools at C.V. Starr are older. This is not the land of bathing beauties or six-pack abs. The women’s locker room is refreshingly free of the covetous curious glances of my younger days.
I eavesdrop shamelessly on these women, most of whom are there for a water exercise class. I get a lot of lunch recommendations, since everyone knows that after a swim you deserve a nice lunch. There is a lot of empathy in that room. And life advice.
“The creek might rise. You never know,” said one woman to her friend. No kidding.
The benefits of exercise for older adults are huge. The Centers for Disease Control has a long list of reasons for people 65 and up to be physically active, ranging from lower blood pressure to reduced risks for dementia and heart disease to living longer independently.
Regular gym visits can also help older people avoid the health risks of social isolation, like cognitive decline, depression, and a weakened immune system.
In simple economic terms, programs that encourage older adults to exercise should cost society — and health insurance companies — less in the long run.
(Illustration by Joe Dworetzky/Bay City News)
Anyone with an eligible Medicare Advantage or Medigap program can take advantage of the SilverSneakers benefit, which provides access to over 15,000 fitness and community centers nationwide, or similar programs called Renew Active and Silver&Fit. SilverSneakers members also get access to live online fitness classes and a video library of pre-recorded workouts.
C.V. Starr Community Center Manager Moneque Wooden says that out of 2,300 members, about 1,300 are covered by Medicare-related insurance programs, meaning that their membership fee is zero.
But who pays?
Of course, there is more than one catch. Although Medicare touts the benefits of exercise, original Medicare does not cover these plans, and not all supplemental Medicare Advantage or Medigap insurers do either. Where coverage is available, the actual costs to the gyms may be only partly reimbursed.
At C.V. Starr, for example, SilverSneakers reimburses only 45% of the fee for those with good intentions — the ones who sign up but then rarely go to the gym.
For Silver Sneakers members who visit the facility at least 10 times a month, the Medicare reimbursement still covers only 72% of the membership costs, a situation that is plainly unsustainable.
C.V. Starr’s Wooden is passionate about the need for this to change. “Insurance companies need to be sharing (savings on health costs) with the health clubs by offering a much higher reimbursement.” Just raising membership costs would not solve the problem, she says, because the actual dollar amount repaid for each membership is capped, meaning that the reimbursement percentages would just go down.
At Planet Fitness, which operates gyms nationwide, members may face additional costs. SilverSneakers plans cover a basic membership but not the “startup” fee of $29 and pays only one-half of the costs of premium plans that offer access to all locations.
Anytime Fitness in Ukiah offers free memberships to covered older adults, a perk worth close to $70 per month, but the facility has a maximum number of such memberships available and may have to temporarily suspend the program for new members.
Although Medicare touts the benefits of exercise, original Medicare does not cover these plans, and not all supplemental Medicare Advantage or Medigap insurers do either. Where coverage is available, the actual costs to the gyms may be only partly reimbursed.
C.V. Starr’s Wooden also points out that the process of billing Medicare insurance is “very cumbersome and time-consuming.” And her staff does not learn that a member’s coverage has changed or lapsed until well after the fact. That leaves the center and the member to sort out the bill. Wooden believes these billing challenges, coupled with low reimbursements rates that are not “enough to pay for the hard cost of running the facility” have caused many gyms to stop accepting members relying on a Medicare insurance payment.
Meanwhile, with over 11,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day through 2027 and average life expectancy up, the need for subsidized fitness benefits, and programs that help older people stay healthy, is not going away anytime soon.
As I watch my peer group using the pools and filling up the gentle yoga class, I keep my fingers crossed that Medicare and insurance companies will keep supporting these programs.
You can check your insurance eligibility and find gyms in Mendocino County and throughout the Bay Area that offer free or partially funded memberships for older adults at SilverSneakers, Renew Active, and Silver&Fit.
What does a longer lifespan mean to you? Two talented columnists tag-team every Friday to tackle the challenges that inform your choices — whether you’re pushing 17 or 70. Recent Stanford Center on Longevity Visiting Scholar Susan Nash looks at life experiences through an acerbic personal lens, while longtime writer and health reporter Tony Hicks takes the macro view to examine how society will change as the aging population grows ever larger. Check in every Friday to expand your vision of living the long game and send us your feedback, column suggestions and ideas for future coverage to newsroom@baycitynews.com.
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