I'm gonna talk about the basics of Medicare and the things that you need to do when you're
getting started so if you're about ready to become eligible for Medicare and you've done
no research up to this point this is a great place to start so stay tuned okay let's talk
about Medicare basics and this is a great place to start if you're brand-new looking at Medicare and
you don't really have any idea on the choices that you have to make or the things you need to do to
get started so this is going to be a great place to start I will give you a very broad overview
on Medicare and how it functions and some of the things that you need to do I'm Keith Armbrecht I'm
founder of Medicare out video and I help people across the country with their Medicare choices
and I'd certainly appreciate it if you allow me to help you with your Medicare choice there's no
cost to use my service and we simply make sure we get all our pieces in the right places almost show
you some of the things in the beginning that you need to understand about Medicare and let's first
start about coming into Medicare there's there's generally three ways to come into Medicare first
one would be Medicare disability so if you're under age 65 and you have a disability and you've
been on Social Security disability for two years you may now become eligible for Medicare that's
a great thing so you need to understand your choices and how it functions now I personally
don't do Medicare disability but absolutely want to help so I've created a website if you go to
Medicare disability help comm fill out the form I will make sure that somebody contacts you to
give you the choices available in your area and explain those choices so certainly very important
to understand that now the main way that most people come into Medicare is when they turn age
65 so if you are turning 65 and you've worked your entire life and you're gonna retire and you're
gonna go into Medicare that's generally the way most people come in to Medicare and there's some
things you need to do when you're about to turn 65 now the other way would be if you're working
and you're past age 65 so you're not ready to retire you're maybe 68 you may be 70 you may be
78 and still working you're on a group plan and you're not ready to come into Medicare so there
are absolutely things you need to do and there are also things that you want to make sure you
do not do especially if you're going to work past age 65 so we're go through that pretty easily so
that you understand exactly whatever scenario you may be another best part about this all of these
solutions generally when you come to Medicare you're generally gonna give more and pay less so
it's actually very good coverage and it's also very affordable so it depends on your specific
situation obviously if you're still at work and your employer pays you know eighty ninety
or a hundred percent of your premium then you're gonna pay more when you come into Medicare but
the benefits are generally always better than any individual plan or certainly any group plan and
I'll go through a little bit of that as well so that's a good start coming into Medicare I often
tell people it's too good it really is too good so it's a great thing to have it works fantastic and
it's a nice thing to kind of retire into so let's start with turning 65 if you are about to turn 65
and you're going to come into Medicare it's pretty simple there's a chart that gives you a window to
sign up for Medicare now I'm almost going to tell you to disregard this chart so you want to do it
before your 65th birthday before the month of your 65th birthday so Medicare will start if you're
gonna do it at 65 it's gonna start on the first of the month of your 65th birthday unless you're
born on the 1st of the month if you're born on the 1st of the month it's going to start the previous
month see absolutely need to do it ahead of time if you're born on the 1st of the month but here
let's talk about June 15th so if you're born on June 15th your Medicare is going to start on June
1st so you absolutely need to set this up ahead of June 1st and it's really a good idea to do
it 60 days out 90 days out just get it off your plate it's it's that doesn't make any sense to
wait nothing's getting it better by the time your birthday month comes around so here if we're in
June we want to be doing this in March or April for June 1st effective date even if you're born
on June 28th that's gonna be first effective date so it's pretty easy to do first thing you need to
do is you need to activate your Medicare Part B so if you you can generally do it online I've created
a URL to make it easy if you go to WWE comm can take you right to the page on the Social Security
website to start your Medicare Part B for June 1st in this scenario so if you're born in the
middle of the month of June everything's gonna start on June 1st so pretty easy to understand
this shows months after your birthday believe me it's complicated if you wait till after you're
65 to try and start your Medicare it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever so now let's talk about
we're past age 65 and we're still working that's that's perfectly okay and the way Medicare works
with after 65 and still working is if you have credible coverage so real health insurance at
work you can keep it as long as you're at work so as long as you're still actively employed you can
keep your credible health insurance at work and not come into Medicare until you retire so let's
assume you're gonna retire at 68 we'll make it easy for you so you don't work any longer than
age 68 you want to do this well ahead of time it takes a little bit longer to get everything
through the process and there's not that much but one thing you absolutely need if you continue to
work is you need an employer coverage form that your employer has to fill out for you to give
to Medicare so that you will not have a penalty on your Medicare Part B so you need to get your
HR department to fill out this form and get it back to you and submit it when you activate your
Medicare Part B now you can get this form right on my website on Medicare Nvidia comm it's in
the Resource Center I'm also going to put a link to it below this video so you can just click on
it download the form that way you can email it to your HR department depending upon who's working in
here HR department depends how long it's going to take to get it back so do it well ahead of time I
would be doing it six months ahead of time if I knew I'm going to retire in June I'm doing this
in January if I know I'm gonna retire in October I'm doing it in Naples or May and just have it
done get it off your plate makes it easy to do now let's talk about the pieces of Medicare and figure
out how you're gonna choose the things you're going to need to have to choose so Medicare has
four main parts and they're completely different from each other so you need to understand but it's
really not that complicated so only these four pieces but they did jumble it together like they
would normally do to make it more complicated so let's try and understand it real quick part a is
Hospital coverage so Medicare Part A covers you when you're inpatient in the hospital so things
that go on in the hospital Medicare Part B is outpatient coverage things that happen
outside the hospital doctor's visits outpatient surgeries rehab things of that nature outside
of the hospital falls under Medicare Part B now here's where they kind of confuse it for
everybody and jumble it all together together Medicare Part C is Medicare Advantage which is
a completely different piece of Medicare than a and B so that's one of your main choices and
I'll show you that in just a minute on what you haveno you're gonna take and then the final piece
is D which is Medicare drug plan so at least it makes a little bit of sense D for drug plans kind
of makes it easy so you're gonna have when you first come into Medicare you're gonna have one
big choice and that one big choice is which Avenue you're going to take you're either gonna stay on
Original Medicare or you're going to choose to go into a Medicare Advantage plan and there is
a major difference between these few choices so very important for you to understand both of them
and I can tell you both can work and it depends on your scenario there are people perfectly happy
on both sides but it's it's there are also people on half begun on side so you got to make sure you
know what you do it when you make this choice so pretty easy to understand Original Medicare
keeps you in Medicare and gives you kind of the freedom and flexibility to choose any
doctor any Hospital in the country that accepts medicare so you can go to any hospital that you
want if you want to go Mayo Clinic you can go to Mayo Clinic if you want to go to Duke universe
Duke University and as long as they take Medicare you can choose anywhere you want to go you don't
have any direction from Medicare on how to access your health care on Medicare Advantage it's a bit
different it's more of an HMO type environment or a PPO type environment where you have in network
benefits where you have to go to certain doctors and certain hospitals and be approved to do that
so you want to make absolutely sure that you understand I can tell you if you if you're
planning on traveling Medicare Advantage could be problematic because you have that specific network
that is generally in your local area on where you live so it's a personal choice and you just
need to kind of understand it so that you make the right choice and that way you don't have any
regrets down the road so and full disclosure I do not offer Medicare Advantage plans I choose not to
offer Medicare Advantage plans just simply because I personally would always choose the freedom and
flexibility god forbid something crazy comes along I want to go anywhere I want to go and and there's
really not a a cost deterrent to choose Original Medicare and I'll show you that in a minute as
well on kind of the average costs on how things work so back to our chart so really your choices
would be if you stay on Original Medicare you're pretty much gonna have a and B you're likely going
to add a Medicare supplement and you're likely gonna add a drug place you know maybe a supplement
in a drug plan and for the most part across the country all of that combined is generally
less than 300 dollars a month so it depends on where you live some is much less than others but
generally it's less than 3.4 fantastic coverage it's almost 100 percent coverage those are very
small deductible and especially if you have a plan G you're only going to have a very small
deductible with no co-pays no coinsurance super easy to use so again it's a very good program and
it's almost too good your other choice would be Medicare Advantage Medicare Part C and somebody
care Advantage plans can have the zero premium so you're still gonna pay your Part B premium
but and not necessarily generally but a lot of Medicare Advantage plans have zero premium some
have higher premiums and it absolutely can be a get what you pay for scenario if it's a low
cost on the outside it's probably going to be a higher cost on the ends I mean when you use it
it's gonna have higher out-of-pocket costs we're on Original Medicare is super low out-of-pocket
cost so again it depends on on what you choose and how you choose it and you'll have people
give you all sorts of opinions on what they have it's the best but just understand your choices so
it's really Original Medicare a be a supplement D or Medicare Advantage Part C and again I'm happy
to help you figure all that out and that's what I do for a living and there's no cost to use my
services if you stay on Original Medicare you get a supplement whatever insurance company
that offers that supplement pays me something to be your service agent so there's no cost to you
whatsoever to make sure that we get it right so we absolutely want to get it right so that gives
you kind of an overview of Medicare and there's certainly a lot more details and I have over a
hundred videos and you're certainly welcome to visit my youtube channel look at things
specifically best supplement plans best drug plans all that kind of stuff and but this is a great
starting point so if you visit Medicare on video comm you can get a quote on a Medicare supplement
plan you can find some videos there you can also get to my youtube channel there the Resource
Center has a tremendous amount of information I'm gonna give you some more information on my
website right now so I hope you'll stick around and let me show you things that you can find on
the website because there's a lot of information there and again I'd appreciate it if you allow
me to help and if there's anything I can do I'm happy to do it and I hope you have a fantastic day