It seems like lately that I am getting call after call about Medicare mistakes and horror stories.
I hate it. I hate hearing these stories and knowing that it could have been avoided if the person had found us sooner.
Because of this, I want to give you the number one insider tip I think everyone should know about. It is something I tell anyone who comes to me for Medicare advice.
Medicare has insurability rules.
What this means is that you can’t necessarily change out of your Medicare plans in the future.
This can create a lot of confusion for people because of their history with employer health insurance and the Affordable Care Act, they assume that it’s reasonably easy to change plans. But with Medicare, that is not the case.
Medicare has strict rules regarding joining and changing plans.
When you first join Medicare, you have a six-month window where you are automatically insurable, meaning you can join any plan you want, and your health history doesn’t come into question.
Outside of that window, you can be subject to insurability review where you can be denied coverage.
However, there is Medicare’s Open Enrollment every year, from October 15th to December 7th, where you can change Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plans. Most people assume because of insurance advertisements, they can change ANY plans whenever.
During Open Enrollment, problems arise when people want to change from Medicare Advantage to Original Medicare with a Medigap plan.
Most of the Medicare messes I have heard lately are from people getting sick, having health issues, and wanting to leave their costly Medicare Advantage plan to join Original Medicare with a Medigap plan.
And it’s these Medigap plans that have the strict rules that make it hard, if not impossible, to join after your 6-month window.
I want to mention that a few states have more relaxed insurability rules that do make switching easier, but most do not.
My advice is to understand that the FIRST Medicare plan you pick could very well be the one you have for the rest of your life.
So please be thoughtful about your upcoming Medicare decision because you might not be able to change everything in the future.
To get help with your Medicare decision, you can register for my next free online Medicare workshop by going here: https://join.themedicarecoach.com/free-workshop
