Audit receipt: your Medicare claims summary
Source: Medicare Summary Notice for Part B, claim 02-10195-592-390, notice dated March 1, 2020 · language: EN · readability by Flesch-Kincaid with a crude syllable counter
SIMPLE score
Scored 0 to 4 per dimension by the adversarial auditor. Passing floor: 3 on every dimension.
Original vs simplified
The original already scored well on style: the 2012 CMS redesign shortened sentences and enlarged type. The gains here are in leading with the answer and cutting content the reader does not need to act.
Readability
Flesch-Kincaid reading grade (target 6 or below for health content) and Flesch Reading Ease (target 60 or above), measured with a crude syllable counter on the reader-facing prose. The rewrite clears the health-literacy grade floor the original missed. It drops the fraud PR and the design-annotation scaffolding, so the reader reaches the answer in one screen instead of four pages, while keeping the notice's two preventive reminders in a small module at the end.
What was done
- Led with the answer: "This is not a bill. You may owe up to $90.15" and "do not pay yet" now open the page, instead of sitting in a page-1 dashboard beside fraud stats.
- Surfaced the hidden good news: Medicare already forwarded the claim to the Wellmark BlueCross BlueShield (Medigap) plan, which may cover part of the $90.15, so the reader is told to wait before paying.
- Split the $90.15 into its two real parts: a $21.59 coinsurance share on the approved eye exam and the full $68.56 on the denied skin-growth removal.
- Promoted the appeal deadline (July 13, 2021) to its own amber callout, out of the last page, and put the seven appeal steps and the Medicare number 1A23BC4DE56 inline behind one expander.
- Defined Medicare-approved amount, coinsurance, deductible, and Medigap at the word; removed the definitions section.
- Rewrote every issuer first-person phrase ("call us", "we must receive") into "Medicare" statements.
- Cut the "$4.2 billion saved" fraud PR, the account-signup marketing, and the CMS design annotations.
Upgrade pass (July 30, 2026)
- Gave the fraud check its own box: "Did you see Dr. Secosan on January 21, 2020?" with the notice's own fraud examples, the report line 1-800-MEDICARE, and its reward mention for tips that uncover fraud.
- Kept the notice's two health reminders (a pneumococcal shot, a screening mammogram) in a small module marked as coming from Medicare's messages, not from this claim.
- Added the governing point that doctors usually charge more than the Medicare-approved amount, and your share is figured from the approved amount ($107.97 here), not the $143.00 charged.
- Stated in the footer that the names and amounts are from Medicare's official sample notice, and your own notice controls.
- Added no calculator: this notice states one settled claim with fixed figures, so there is no formula for the reader to re-run. Zero is the right answer here.