if you live in washington state and you're about to come into medicare or even if you're already in
medicare it's important to understand there are some differences in washington and how medicare
plans work so i'm gonna go through that right now so that we understand it i'm keith armbruck
founder of medicare on video and i help people across the country make the right medicare choices
and i can absolutely help you as well one of the great parts is there's no cost to allow me
to help you so hopefully you'll take advantage of my information and we'll make sure we get
all your pieces in the right places something you would find very helpful is download a copy
of my book medicare made clear i give it away for free and you'll see in the book i cover just about
every piece of medicare there's also videos in the book where i explain everything so you don't
have to actually read through all the information to find out exactly what you need to know you'll
also find the links on where to sign up and things you'll need now and in the future so take a second
go to medicareonvideo.com forward slash free book you can download it right now and then it's yours
to keep i hope you find it very helpful let's talk right now about washington state and how
medicare plans work and what we're talking about is when you have original medicare part a part b
you will generally get a medicare supplement plan or a medigap plan that covers the gaps in a and b
so i'll cover all that in other videos but right now we're going to talk about how those medicare
supplement plans work in washington state because it's a little different so when you have your
initial enrollment so initial enrollment period is when you're turning 65. so if you come into
medicare at age 65 it's your initial enrollment period if you continue to work past age 65 and you
stay on your group plan and then when you retire whether it's at 70 or 72 or whatever it may be
that would be considered special enrollment period now they are identical it's exactly
like when you're turning 65 even if you work past 65 as long as you do it
when you retire and come off a group plan so important to understand those things so
at that time you're going to start your medicare part b that's when your part b
will start either when you turn 65 or when you retire and come off of your group plan now from
that date you actually have a six month window to get a medicare supplement or medigap plan
however we don't want to do that we want to get to medicare supplement or medigap the same date that
we start our part b because they go hand in hand they work together so it doesn't make sense really
to wait past your part b date to get your medicare supplement plan but you could if you wanted to
so what is different in washington state is when it comes time if you want to change your medicare
supplement plan so with medicare supplement plans when you come in
after a couple of years they may have some increase in cost so they may have some rate
increases along the way and washington state gives you rights to change if that does happen so
generally when you come into medicare and you have a medicare supplement you're either going to get a
plan n or plan g some people previously may have had plan f so if you do not have any increase in
rate you probably aren't going to change so you're probably going to stick with it it's going to be
with you for quite a while but on occasion there are carriers that come in with a lower cost plan
g or plan n so that might make sense to change as well so washington state gives you that ability to
change and what it says is if you have a medicare supplement plan a which nobody has so it really
doesn't make a difference you could change to a medicare supplement plan a but if you have plan b
through n which includes f g and m then you can change to fgrn down the road without any medical
underwriting so no health questions asked if you want to change you can change so if we save even
five dollars a month or ten dollars because the plans are exactly the same so but i've seen it in
much bigger savings than that so what it means is that every year we want to do a comparison
and make sure we have the best value and if we don't have the best value we can change
without any medical questions so who has the right to change you must currently be enrolled
in a medicare supplement plan so if you have a medicare supplement plan currently gives you the
ability to change anytime you want it just means if you did not get one in the beginning then it's
not going to give you a right to jump on one down the road so you would have to go through medical
underwriting at that point but if you currently have one and you got rate increases or there's a
lower plan available then we can change it without any questions asked and when can you do it you can
do it any time of the year so you don't a lot of people get confused that they have to wait
until medicare open enrollment which is the end of the year where you see all those tv commercials
hawking generally medicare advantage plans it does not have anything to do with original medicare and
a medicare supplement so you can change your medicare supplement any time of the year and
again most people these days are either on plan f plan g and plan n and they're standardized so a
g is a g is a g doesn't matter which insurance company we're with they're exactly the same so
if we get a lower cost we want to get a lower cost so whatever we can save that's what we do
so that's my primary goal is to get you the best value on your medicare supplement plan so i hope
you found this helpful certainly download my book medicare on video dot com forward slash free book
link will be below the video as well i'm happy to help with any of the medicare questions just send
me an email give me a call we'll work through it we'll make sure we get all your pieces
in the right places hope you have a fantastic day hey don't go anywhere these are some of my most
recent videos right here you can also find the link right below this video to download my book
medicare made clear absolutely free you can also subscribe to my channel right here
so please download my book watch some videos subscribe to the channel have a great day