Please let us know how it goes.
Nope. I did it through the Medicare website which had contact information for the Medigap provider I wished to use. (AARP branded, but actually UHC.) All it took was a (long) phone call to sign up. Long because she had to read me all the paperwork for me to agree to.
Plan D for drugs took another (long) phone call.
I worked with an advocate down in San Diego to get my dad’s Medigap sorted out. He was great. Like Hajario says, they get paid out of a fund that the insurance companies pay into. The advocate I worked with wasn’t trying to steer me one way or the other (although he had opinions when asked) but he helped clarify a bunch of things and make sure everything staid on track when some animal called my dad up and tried to put him on another HMO Advantage plan.
Here in the UK too. They have this infuriating practice of whacking up premiums for loyal (=non-savvy) customers with automatic renewals so that they can offer seemingly amazingly low rates to new customers. It’s all about the churn. There was some campaign to try to shame them into more commonsense practices, but I don’t know if that ever had much effect.
Thank goodness I don’t have to do all that for medical care as well [/smug].
Help me comprehend Medigap plans that are linked to Part D plans? I gather upthread this is a thing, which is news to me.
My retirement date is in July. I’m thinking Medigap G for me and F for my wife (she’s a little older and qualifies for F but I don’t). I’m also thinking a Part D plan. I’ve been researching each of these as a separate issue. Is there a place I’m supposed to look at both simultaneously?
Medicare.gov has an option to search for Medigap + Part d, but I thought it just dumped me into one or the other. Is that where I’m supposed to look?
How do I wrap my head around plans that incorporate both?
I’m at the stage of looking at Part D, as well. It’s one of the questions I’m going to ask the advocate today during our teleconsult.
I’m fuzzy on the details, too, but as far as I can grasp from studying at Medicare.gov, Medigap plans and Part D aren’t linked - you just pick out your Medigap plan, and then separately pick out a Part D. You pay for Medigap directly to the insurance company, and you pay for Part D to Medicare.
Medicare experts, do I have it right? As I said, I’m going to check my understanding with the advocate later today.
Correct, they’re separate plans which address separate expenses. Medigap plans cover most costs that Part B doesn’t (the primary difference between F and G is that F pays the annual deductible and G doesn’t); Part D covers prescription drug costs. You don’t have to sign up for either one during the initial window, but you can incur penalties if you don’t.
While Medigap plans are standard, Part D plans vary wildly among providers. It’s important to include the drugs you take (or anticipate taking) when evaluating available plans: concentrating on premiums to the exclusion of everything else can cost you boocoo buxx down the line.
Regarding Part D prescription plans, one can change providers each year without penalty. There is a ‘window’ each fall (sometime in the October-December timeframe) during which time you can enter the Medicare website and search for providers. Be sure you have your current list of prescriptions, and you can also enter a preferred list of pharmacies.
My current provider just raised co-pays on most of our scrips, so I will definitely be shopping this fall.
I also am retiring effective July; great minds plan alike.
We will be finalizing our choices this week with a broker; plan G for both of us (most expensive, but if you can afford it, “set it and forget it” cost-wise). I would have preferred going G-HD for myself and save a hundred bucks a month, but after realizing I’d have to go through underwriting if I wanted to change plans down the road (and likely to be in worse health), I chickened out and will go with straight plan G.
I strongly recommend plugging in your drugs into Medicare.gov and let it show you plans based on TOTAL cost (premium + drug prices). It turns out the $69/mo plan is ultimately cheaper for both of us than the $8/mo plans. NB: the Medicare site shows the total cost for the remainder of the year, so don’t have a heart attack - they aren’t monthly totals.
And one more thing. Many plans have preferred pharmacies. Going to a non-preferred one can be a lot more expensive, so make sure that the one you go to is on the plan, or be prepared to switch. I switched from a local pharmacy to CVS because of this. Actually an improvement because our CVS is closer and is open 24 hours, but I felt bad.
I didn’t realize there was such a tool - thanks!
Yeah, spending more up front may result in savings depending on your own patterns. I did some fairly serious number crunching when we were looking at a high deductible plan (not retired yet, this was an employer plan). Even with the huge deductible, and with me having quite a few health conditions that require lots of meds and lab tests, the HD plan turned out cheaper.
I had the teleconsult with the advocate that hajario recommended. He’s right, she’s a terrific person for being helpful and informative.
I had all my questions typed up and ready for the call, and she answered them all. We discussed prices of the Medigap Plan G policies from various insurers, and after I gave her the list of drugs that I take, picked between two Silver Script plans. Mr. brown has no prescriptions, so she recommended the cheapest drug plan for him. If things change in the future, we can always bump him up on that.
I forget - was it mentioned above that people who earned more in their last working years, in addition to paying more for their Part B for twenty-four months, also pay more for their Part D drug plan? Crap.
So in a week or two, I’ll call her again and we will do the signup for: Anthem Plan G for both of us, and the drug plans as outlined above. She is a broker in addition to being an advocate.
Thank you, hajario, for the recommendation. I told her that someone from my message board, who lived in Santa Barbara and had been retired for awhile, referred me to her, and she was pleased.
I am SO happy that it worked out for you.
And just think, when we move to Oregon in a few months, I’ll have to find a new advocate! Well, maybe not. Maybe all I do is tell Medicare and Anthem about my new address, and they adjust the prices of the premiums. I hear that premiums are more when you are not in or near an area of dense population.
Here’s the Oregon contact info for senior health insurance advocacy. I bet you can call in advance and set things up so there are no gaps in coverage.
Thank you, BBB. I’ve bookmarked this for when the move starts to become a real thing.
I saw that as part of the Medigap policy, we get something called “Silver Sneakers”, a senior gym membership discount something. I looked online to see about participating local gyms, and yesterday went to the only one listed. It’s a good gym, and I think that the SS program completely covers the basic cost. That’s good - I had free access to a gym located in the building where I worked, and I got used to working out for free.
We had our enrollment phone call with the advocate/broker, and our applications for Plans G and our Parts D have been submitted and should be approved before the end of the month, according to Ariana. It went very easily and even Mr. brown was impressed by her. He was huffy at first that we did this through a broker and thought we should just go directly to the insurance companies. By the end of the call, he was glad we used her.
So that’s checked off the retirement to-do list. Now to go back to worrying about the rollover of my funds into my personal brokerage account (see Countdown To Retirement thread).
Hopefully this article isn’t paywalled. This is good news that will hopefully cut down on those incredibly annoying Medicare Advantage TV ads.
Starting Sept. 30, if Joe Namath, William Shatner or Jimmy Walker wants to sell you on Medicare Advantage (MA), they are going to have to disclose what insurance plan they are advertising. And these television pitches can’t misuse the Medicare logo or card to lead consumers to believe the celebrity endorsers represent the federal government.
Another provision in the regulation limits the time an agent or other salesperson can contact a potential enrollee and try to sell them an MA plan. Often, Rose said, “members just get bombarded by cold calls on plans that they might be interested in.” The regulation says a broker cannot keep calling someone to sell them a plan 12 months after they first asked for information or expressed interest in a plan.
Ack. About 18 hours to go before my Part B coverage kicks in.
We’ve been without medical coverage for about a month. This is because I didn’t know that we should have applied for Part B coverage a good while before we needed it. By the time I applied (mid-May, I think?), it was too late for coverage to start for the month of June, so it was slated that it start on July 1. If necessary during June, we would opt for Cobra coverage. But what were the odds that something would pop up during the last few days before Part B coverage?
Well, something has. I’m having peculiar very localized headaches accompanied by “pulsatile tinnitus” in the nearby ear. My doc is out next week, so I’m going to urgent care first thing tomorrow (July 1) morning.
I wish I had been aware of the fact that I should have applied for Part B about two months before needing it.
I’ve read articles that say you need to apply at 64-1/2 to get it at 65. Just under three years from now for me.
May the problem with your tinnitus go away without complications.