Welcome to Medicare School Daily, where we help you understand Medicare, save money,
avoid mistakes, and above all else, get the most out of your Medicare benefits. Now, today's
topic is avoiding the number one Medicare mistake. Now sadly there are a lot of mistakes
that people make as they go on Medicare, but today, I'm just going to address this one
because this is a key one. And so what happens with many people as they go on Medicare, they
make this mistake by making the three key decisions around their Medicare benefits without
first getting an education. And we all know that there's decisions in life that we don't
have to have a lot of information. Basic information may be sufficient. But folks, when it comes
to Medicare, you need more than just a little bit of information. You want to make sure
you've got all the education that's required to make an educated decision, because this
is a big decision once you go on Medicare and you want to make the right one. And so
one of the key decisions you need to make, number one, you're going to have to make a
decision as to when you will start your Medicare benefits. Now, for some of you, this one will
be the easy decision because you're going to have to start Medicare at 65, which means
you're retired, your spouses are retired and you don't have any work options. So you'll
start Medicare at 65. But for others of you, you're not going to start Medicare at 65.
In fact, you're going to start Medicare beyond 65. So we're 65+, could be 67, 69.
And the reason you don't start at 65 is because you are still working and you have employer
options available to you. Now, there are some people today that are still working that will
go on Medicare. It's a good option for them. It just seems to be better than their work
plan. Others of you, you like your work plan. You like the cost, the coverage of the plan,
and you're going to stay on Medicare until you retire. And so your time to start Medicare
is going to be later. You've got to be educated about that. And then secondly, what you need
beyond Medicare A and B. There are some people who decide to enroll into original Medicare
only and they'll have A and B only. Now, frankly, for most of you that would not be a good decision
because there's too much financial risk in having A and B only. And this is why people
choose to get supplemental plans or maybe an advantage plan or prescription drug plan.
They want to enhance their Medicare benefits by buying other insurance. And those are key
decisions you need to make with an education. And then thirdly, how and when to enroll into
Medicare and these Medicare plans. So when we come into Medicare, we come in only one
of two times. We come into Medicare using what we call the initial enrollment period,
the acronym IEP. And this is what people use when they start Medicare at 65. The other
time we come into Medicare is during what we call the special enrollment period.
And this is for those who didn't start at 65 because they or their spouse were still
working. And so these are the times we come in and we have to follow a certain timeline
or a timeframe that's set out for us for Medicare. So we make all these decisions so that we're
doing this timeline properly, and so that we will not be penalized because frankly,
there are some penalties that come from Medicare that are lifetime. And so this shows us what
the proper timeline is, and you need education about those decisions. So those are the decisions
that we're going to have to make. But also I want you to realize there are going to be
some difficulties that you will encounter as you come into Medicare. OK? One of those
is too many opinions. In fact, everyone has an opinion about Medicare. If someone's gone
on Medicare, they made a choice that was good for them. Folks, that may not be the best
choice for you, but they'll try to share with you their opinion about Medicare. And then
there's also too many options. In fact, in most markets today, you're going to have anywhere
from probably 50 to 75 different options. You'll probably have 15 to 20 different advantage
plans. You'll have probably 10 to 15 different supplemental companies and each of those have
a variety of plans, sometimes up to 10. And then we have anywhere from 20 to 30 prescription
drug plans. So in every market, we're gonna have lots of options. And this can be, frankly,
very overwhelming with all the opinions and options.
And then thirdly, we add to that all the salespeople, all the agents that are going to try to be
pushing a product. And some of those salespeople are very persistent. Sometimes they're very,
very pushy. They want you to buy their particular plan. All right? And so this is what adds
to the overwhelming feeling that people have as they go on Medicare. Key decisions and
then they have these difficulties that they always encounter.