- Want to talk about the BENES Act, the Beneficiary Early
Notification and Simplification...
I don't know exactly what the acronyms stand for.
Something like that act,
which is something nobody's talking about.
And everybody in the Medicare space needs to know about.
It's all good news. Stay tuned.
While I talk about it.
- So best news in the BENES Act. Oh,
and I would like to pay tribute to the Game of Thrones,
a series of which I am apparently one of the only people on
the planet that has not watched it.
But, I'm told it's really good if you like a lot of violent
sex scenes.
And we all know that I don't.
So I don't really know about Game of Thrones,
but that's where this is all--this is all from.
So if you're like me and you hated the fact that if your
clients were late to enroll for Medicare Part B,
they had to wait until the general election period.
And I hate to throw that acronym around, the "GEP," because
one in a hundred agents is familiar with
that acronym, the "GEP".
They all just know, "oh, you got late part B,
you sign up the first quarter of the year."
That is actually called the general election period,
the "GEP."
The BENES Act.
Yeah, here we go.
Talking a lot of acronyms.
Stay with me.
The BENES Act was passed in December of 2020 with all the
COVID and the holidays, probably missed it.
And we haven't really talked about it.
So the good news is, you haven't missed anything because
most of it does not phase in until January of 2023.
The extra good news is,
is that we're getting away from this craziness,
that if you were one of, I think I saw it
was like over a million people a year that screw up and
don't get part B.
Then they're stuck.
They have to wait until the general election period, that
first quarter of the year.
Well then when you sign up,
it won't start until six months later till July 1st.
And that, you know, that elongates, your period without
coverage at full risk and grows your penalty.
The BENES Act gets rid of that.
If you sign up in January,
it will start February 1st.
If you sign up February,
it will start March 1st.
If you sign up in March,
it will start April 1st.
So the first day of the next month.
I don't know why I use that as an example,
because it's no longer the first quarter of the year.
They moved it back to the last quarter of the year.
So it'll be actually October 15th through December 31st.
So a little bit shorter than
the full last quarter of the year.
But I think that makes a little bit more sense, too.
And it's all good news, right?
Because we don't want this big long delay.
So, BENES Act, that's coming--it's passed, it's the law,
but it not phase in until 2023.
Also in this legislation is more notification to be sent out
to people getting ready to approach Medicare.
So when people are, or when they turn 60,
so between 60 and 64,
that CMS and Social Security will send them a lot more
information about the enrollment time periods,
about the late penalties,
and hopefully prevent so many people falling into
this late Part B lifetime penalty duhduh-duh-duh trap.
Other things in the legislation of note are the fact that
CMS and Health and Human Services have been authorized to
make a special exception if you have a late part B
extraordinary circumstance that you could call Medicare,
call Social Security and say, 'Hey,
this is what went down. I don't want the Part B penalty.
Give me a SEP that would then start the month after applying
for that SEP.'
So when you have clients, which we all do,
that fall into that trap,
they can call and ask for their own individual SEP for
extraordinary circumstances.
The last thing in the BENES Act of note to you that
work in the under 65 market is that people that qualify for
Medicare due to ESRD under 65,
they have only been allowed to remain on Medicare for 36
months past their transplant.
Then they're falling off in a hole and they can't afford
their immunosuppressant drugs.
So the law changes that so that they can stay on Medicare
longer.
And of course, if you want to read all the details,
you can Google it and you'll see that it's all been there.
And this is kind of stuff that NAHU, that we really
wanted to put in the NAHU exam as an alternative to AHIP.
Again, we didn't get all the carriers to accept it,
so right now, most of your taking AHIP instead of NAHU,
but if you are taking the NAHU exam, bless you,
you will get a year's worth of education free.
And all of us FMO's that are on the council,
we're all farming that out.
So I'll be doing a seminar in the spring on Social Security,
so it'll be free,
anybody that's a member of NAHU,
you guys can tune into that.
And then all the other FMO's,
we're all chipping in to do more education.
So we're back in (indistinct) this week.
She is at the United American Eagles conference
up in Mackinaw,
she had to take three little planes to get there,
she hates little planes.
So assuming that she makes it back safely,
she will be back next week.
And if you have questions, hit me in the comments,
call your marketer, or email us at Gordon Marketing.
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