By SYLVIA GORDON
Guest Columnist
If you are 64 or order, starting each October your mailbox will be full of solicitations from dozens of insurance companies. Why the onslaught of not only print, but TV and radio ads? Because 60 million Medicare members can change their drug and Medicare Advantage plan regardless of their health. There are billions of dollars in play and every insurance company in your area will reach out to you.
It’s not all bad because you do have a lot of choices. What is bad is how confusing it can be and the time pressure to make a choice before the deadline of Dec. 7.
I’ve had many instances of clients calling me after Jan. 1 and saying, “Now that all my company has gone home from the holidays, I’m ready to sit down and go over my Medicare options with you now.” Unless there is a special exception, most people are “locked in” to their health plan for a year and can’t change. Telling those clients that they missed their annual window to move is never fun.
Something that frustrates insurance agents as well as the general public is that we agents know what the plan changes for 2022 will look like in July. By law, we are not able to share that information until Oct. 1. We sit on the information for three months, and then when it’s time to call all our clients about the changes, we struggle to get ahold of you, or your struggle to reach your very busy insurance agent.
The system is further convoluted because this time period (Oct. 1 to Dec. 7) has no bearing on the millions of Medicare members who own a Medicare Supplement policy – yet they are under the impression that they are impacted as well.
If you have a Medicare Supplement Plan, it’s most likely a Plan F or G. The law doesn’t “lock you in” to your plan or give you a time period that you can move. With a Medicare Supplement plan, you can change any time of year. The catch is that you must be able to answer the health questions! If you have, for example, COPD, Parkinson’s, or use a walker, you are unlikely to ever be able to change to a similar plan.
But you could move to a Medicare Advantage plan without answering any health questions – you guessed it, during the October to December time frame. Hence, all the letters and postcards in your mailbox!
Sylvia Gordon is the president of Gordon Marketing, headquartered in Noblesville, where she trains on Medicare and Social Security in all 50 states. You can contact her at sgordon@gordonmarketing.com.