The first and most crucial step in your Medicare decision is deciding which Medicare program, Original Medicare or Medicare Advantage, is best for you.
If you’ve picked Original Medicare, you will likely also choose a supplement plan (Medigap). I always recommend that you sign up for a Medicare supplement plan to protect your retirement savings; let me explain why.
Since Original Medicare only covers 80% of approved expenses, you’re responsible for the remaining 20%
Supplement insurance will pay most of the 20%. If you don’t get supplemental insurance, you are responsible for the remaining 20&.
Let me share just a quick story about why the supplement plans are so important.
A little while ago, we got an email from Katie. Katie is a 30-year-old teacher and was calling on behalf of her dad, who’s on Medicare. He had been diagnosed with kidney failure. Original Medicare covers the treatment includes dialysis and possibly a kidney transplant.
While it’s excellent that Medicare covers the treatment, it’s not great that her dad did not get a supplement plan when he first joined Medicare.
That is why Katie came to us. She called to see if there is anything that we could do to help get financial assistance because she knew that 20% of his dialysis cost would quickly drain his retirement savings.
Katie also knew that the government wouldn’t step in for extra help based on government rules until he went through nearly all this money.
What makes me most sick about this decision is that his diagnosis’s financial impact could have been avoided by simply getting a supplement plan when he first joined Medicare.
While any supplement plan is better than no supplement plan, I recommend you go one step further and find the plan that best fits you.
Supplement plans are very different, and different plans fit different people for various reasons.
The way insurance companies and brokers sell supplement plans extremely frustrating. Insurance companies try to sell you supplement plans that make them the most money, and they rarely show you lower money-making plans even if they fit you best.
That’s why it’s so critical that if you’re choosing Original Medicare, that you also find the supplement plan that fits your unique situation the best.
