you worked for the FBI,
or maybe the CIA or
for the Treasury Department, the IRS or Homeland Security.
You worked for some agency within the federal government.
You qualify for what is called FEHB,
which simply stands
for Federal Employee Health Benefits.
And so you have some very unique options for you
whenever you go on Medicare.
Welcome to Medicare School Daily,
where we help you understand Medicare, save money,
avoid making costly mistakes and above all else,
get the most out of your Medicare benefits.
Now today's topic
is exclusively for those that are retired
from the federal government.
Option number one is you can choose
to enroll when you're eligible for Medicare,
enroll into Medicare A only words.
You're not required to take B.
Now you're the only group of people
that don't have to take B
everybody else other than retired.
Federal workers
have to take Part B,
but if you decide you're not going to take B
because you don't want to pay the premium,
you can enroll in Part A
only on the hospital site . So what's going to happen
when those bills are processed?
Here's the way it's
going to work
on an inpatient bill,
which means you're admitted to the hospital
or you're in a skilled nursing facility.
What will happen because you have A only Medicare
will pay first, and Medicare will take the balance of that
and actually send it
to your federal employee health benefit.
Whoever your insurance company is will then be the secondary payer.
Now, when it comes to outpatient,
that's going to be different because you have A
only you don't have B and B as the outpatient side.
So in the outpatient side,
everything you do on outpatient basis or doctor
services, then you have FEHB in other words.
Medicare's not going to pay anything
FEHB is going to pay first.
And whatever your co-pays are,
your deductibles,
coinsurance then that will be sent to you
and then you will be responsible for that.
And again, this is something that you can do now.
A word of caution here
is that if you take A Only and you don't take B, now
at 65 and you want to pick up B at a later date,
you can do so, but you can only do so
at the first quarter of any year.
So January one to March 31st,
and for every year you went without B
when you were Medicare eligible,
they will add a 10% penalty to your Part B premium.
So if you
want to pick up
B in four years, you'll pay a 40% penalty
added to the Part B, but this is one option.
Now, the second option you have is actually to enroll
in Medicare Parts A and B. In other words,
you're going to have Medicare
become the first payer on everything.
So all the bills, inpatient, outpatient doctor
related services, Medicare is going to be the first payer
and then they'll take the balance of that and send it to FEHB
and they will pay second and almost always,
not always, but almost always.
In that scenario, you have a pretty much 100% percent coverage.
So Medicare Pays first FEHB is going to pay second.
Now the reminder here you are
going to have to pay your Part B premium this year, 2022.
The Part B premium is $170.10 a month.
So that's really what you got to decide.
Is it worth that?
$170.10 a month
to put Medicare on the first payer position
instead of you having to be the first payer
position like you would if you had A only.
So then option number three and that is to enroll in A
and B and get a supplemental plan.
In other words,
just like the rest of the Medicare population,
you don't have to be covered
by your group plan, your FEHB plan.
You actually can get out of the FHB system
and you can enroll
into Medicare and get a supplemental plan.
Most people today are buying G plans or N plans, those are the
two common plans, and sometimes it makes
financial sense to do that.
So if you do decide to enroll into a supplemental plan,
what's going to happen?
All the bills are first going to go to Medicare
because you're enrolled in A and B,
and they'll take that balance and send it to the supplemental plan.
So instead of that balance
being sent to FEHB
because you have gotten out of FEHB,
it's going to go to the supplemental company
that you have chosen based upon the plan
that you purchase. All right. So they pay second.
Now, one of the issues with this
you've got to be comfortable with is because if you take a
supplemental plan, those are those ten letters A, B, C, D,
F, G, K, L, M or N - any of those ten
standardized supplemental plans.
When that happens, you actually have to
sign a statement saying that you're
permanently terminating your FEHB benefits.
You can't go back into that system.
And so we've had plenty of people do that.
They felt like it was their best option.
But again, if you do that, you got to be sure
that you have peace knowing that
you can never go back into the FEHB system
once you have signed the paperwork
terminating FHB because you went on a supplemental plan.
All right. And then lastly, you can enroll into Medicare
A and B and get an Advantage plan.
These are private health insurance companies.
They're called replacement plans.
And again,
this is an option available to you. Now
when you do that, here's the way the bills would work.
You'd be issued one card by the insurance company,
the Advantage Company,
and so you're going to pay
your co-pay
and then that balance of that bill is going to be given
to that private health insurance company.
So you have some small co-pays and then the balance,
the majority of the bills can be paid
by the Advantage plan. Right? Now,
If you decide you want to be on an advantage plan
the normal market advantage plans,
you don't have to terminate like we would.
If we want a supplemental plan,
you actually only have to suspend.
In other words, you're taking those FEHB benefits
and all those options in setting them the side.
But it's not a forever decision.
It's an annual decision, so if you decide
I like the Advantage plan, I'm gonna stay on it.
Then you can keep doing that.
But if you come to a place, an age
or health related, we say now, I think
I really would rather return to original Medicare with
my FEHB benefits.
You can pick that up any year
during Medicare's open enrollment,
which is October 15th to December 7th.
So again, it's not. It's not permanent.
It is just simply a temporary suspension.
And then you can review that on an annual basis.
All right, so if you're retired from the federal government,
you have these particular four options
and you need decide which is best for you.
Hey, thanks so much for watching the video,
and I do hope that it was helpful.
Now if you feel like
you need to learn more about Medicare
to make sure you're making the right Medicare decision,
really the best way and the easiest way to do
that is to go to MedicareSchool.com.
That's MedicareSchool.com,
and you'll be given the opportunity to be able
to click on Get the Free Workshop.
We call that the essentials workshop
and I do all the teaching.
And there you'll learn all the ins and outs of Medicare
to make sure that you have an accurate
and thorough understanding of how Medicare works.
The second thing you can do
is click where it says, talk to a Medicare guide,
and there
you can actually set up a time
where you can discuss your situation
with a Medicare guide.
They'll explain all your options
and actually even walk you
through the enrollment process as well,
if that's what you need to do.
And so go to MedicareSchool.com,
watch the workshop or talk to a Medicare guide.
It would be our privilege to assist you further.