welcome to medicare mini course day three so we're breaking this down into pieces i'm keith arnbrecht
founder of medicare on video and i hope people across the country make the right medicare choices
i'm gonna absolutely try to help you as well we're gonna figure this out in small bites
because it's not so easy to digest everything all at once so day three we're going to talk about
medicare eligibility and enrollment who's eligible how do you do it when do you start it and we're
gonna go through it all right now you can find the entire course on my website at medicare
on video dot com forward slash mini dot course and you'll have everything right there to use as you
need it when you need it and i hope you certainly find it helpful if you do find it helpful just
leave a comment below the video super helpful to me to just elevate it so that youtube shows it to
more people who absolutely need this information so very helpful if you leave a comment like the
video subscribe do all that stuff that everybody on youtube begs you to do so whatever we can do to
make it just get to more people very helpful let's talk about medicare eligibility who is eligible
for medicare and it's really not super complicated but you could either be at age 65 or older you
must be a us citizen or a legal resident for five or more years that makes you eligible for medicare
or you could be on social security disability for two years so if you're on social security for
disability for two years you then become eligible for medicare so that's for people
that are on disability under age 65 or you could have als or end stage renal disease let's hope
we're not talking about that but that is what makes you eligible for medicare is really those
circumstances so medicare enrollment when it comes time to enroll into medicare there are different
enrollment periods and i can tell you this will throw anybody for a loop on trying to figure out
the correct medicare enrollment period for you so if you're turning 65 it's really not
that complicated but outside of turn of 65 they throw in all these other different categories and
restrictions and timelines so we're going to try and figure that out right now so you
have the initial enrollment period special enrollment period general enrollment period
annual election period to make it a little more complicated the annual election period
they more often call it the open enrollment period so we're going to go through that right now and
try and understand exactly what we have so the initial enrollment period is kind of the easy
enrollment period it's when you are turning age 65 and when you are turning age 65 you have a seven
month window and it wraps around the month that you turn 65 so it's three months before
three months after and includes the month that you turn 65. now that sounds great
but that's really not in real world terms either because you need to do everything
in the three months before you turn 65 to have your medicare start on the first of the month
of the month that you turn 65. so if you turn 65 on june 15th your medicare is going to start on
june 1st that'll knock people right out right off the bat to figure that one out and to make
it a little more complicated if you're born on the first so if you're born on june 1st it's going to
start the first of the previous month so if you're born on june 1st it's going to start on may 1st
so all that wrapped around what it tells us do it early do it right when you're turning 64 and a
half you need to be on the train figuring out get your medicare started again that's what we do we
walk you through it there's no cost to let us help you do it so by all means give us a call and let's
make sure we get your pieces in the right places at the right time because it can be complicated
special enrollment period you really don't want to fall too much into special enrollment period but
it's if you're past your initial enrollment period at age 65 you're leaving credible coverage
so in other words you're retiring from work and you've had group insurance then you can come into
medicare at that time you're within eight months at the end of that coverage and you submit what
is called an employer coverage form or a cmsl 564 form which i also have on my website to make it
easy but this is for people that work past 65 stay on their group insurance and then they're
going to retire at 68 72 78 whatever it may be and you're going to come off your group insurance
and go into medicare so again same scenario do it as early as you possibly can there is no harm in
signing up early as long as we know what the date is you might as well get it off your plate and get
it done but we need to show the proof of credible coverage we need to get that enrollment that cms
l564 form filled out by your employer which can be a challenge as well so give us call we'll walk you
through that we'll make sure everything gets done general enrollment period this is the one that
is not a good one so this one's complicated so this is for people that maybe turned 65 and were
eligible to go into medicare and they didn't do it they just forgot about it didn't do whatever
they were supposed to do and now medicare is going to make it hard so if you were supposed to come
in and you were eligible at 65 or when you left your employer and you didn't come off your plan
go into medicare like you're supposed to they're going to make it difficult so there's a whole kind
of timeline where now you can only apply during between january 1st and march 31st and then the
coverage is going to be effective on july 1st so let's say you're looking to come into medicare
you missed your stuff and now you want to come in september you're going to have to wait a long time
before your medicare is going to be effective and let's hope we don't have significant medical bills
during that time so in other way make just do it when you're supposed to do it and again give me
a call i'll walk you through it i'll make sure we meet the timelines and we'll get everything
done now here is the medicare enrollment annual election period also known as open enrollment
period also known as 4 million commercials on your tv your mailbox full of mail from
every medicare advantage company in the nation and you'll see every celebrity telling you how
wonderful their benefits are and you get free this and free that and and it's just it's confusing to
to people on knowing whether they have the right plan they don't have the right plan
it's super complicated and what i can tell you is don't buy into all the hype don't let them
sell you on something because a lot of times it sounds or it's made to sound so much better
than it actually is when you get in it so just we want to make sure we have the right plan from the
start that will take care of everything that we want to do and there's a big difference between
original medicare with a supplement and a medicare advantage plan so something we need to understand
completely because you don't want to get stuck especially when it's medical things in the future
and obviously we're all going to have things arise as we age so the annual election period runs from
october 15th to december 7th that's when you have to make a choice and again this is for people
with a medicare advantage plan or a medicare drug plan this is when you can make changes to
those two plans not a medicare supplement plan a medicare supplement plan you can do anytime
during the year this is for medicare advantage medicare drug plans you make any changes during
october 15 to december 7th and then it becomes effective on january 1st so you can change
disenroll start do whatever you want with a medicare advantage or your medicare drug plan so
medicare applications you're automatically enrolled if you're already drawing social security
when you turn 65 because they're going to assume if you're drawing social security
then you're probably not working so they're going to start your medicare a and medicare b or you're
getting your benefits from the railroad if you are not then you must apply if you're going to
come into medicare at age 65 you have to contact social security let them know you want your
medicare to start if you're not going to turn 60 you're not going to come into medicare when
you turn 65 you're going to continue working you're going to keep your group coverage plan
you do not want your medicare a or b to start so just make sure that if they send you information
that it does not start before you are ready to leave your employer group coverage so super
important understand that and i see it every day where people have started medicare part b
while they are still on their group coverage and it just throws a whole wrench into everything
when you need to actually get stuff set up going forward so that completes day three of our
medicare mini course you can see we've got a couple days more to go but we're going to get
through it we're going to make sure we understand everything please leave a comment on the video i
hope you find this helpful and again give us a call it's what we do there's no cost to let us
help you we make our living from helping with medicare supplement plans so whatever company
we choose that is best in your zip code they pay me to be your service agent now
and in the future so it's something you'll want my help likely in the future as well
so i hope you find this helpful give us a call if you have any questions have a fantastic day