The 3 Medicare Timing Rules Everybody Is Getting Wrong

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Medicare timing mistakes are easy to make, and some of them can follow you for years.

In this episode, we’re breaking down three Medicare rules people get wrong all the time: when Part A starts, when your Medigap Open Enrollment window actually happens, and what can go wrong if you delay Part D drug coverage.

These rules may sound small, but they can affect penalties, plan access, and future coverage options.

Watch before one missed date turns into a Medicare headache.

We look forward to taking your calls!

Transcript

0:03

Okay. When you begin Medicare, there are three very important uh enrollment periods that you don't want to make a mistake on. Because if you do, you can get left without coverage, you could get penalized, or you could just make a decision that impacts you for the rest of your life. And so we see a lot of people make these mistakes and we don't want you to make them. Welcome to Medicare School Daily. My name is Josh Music. I'm here with one of our agents here at MedicareSchool.com, Jesse Fox. Welcome. Good to be here. Thank you. My dad is traveling, and so we're having people that uh are on our team fill in for him, and it gives you guys an opportunity. I'm gonna brief I can't say you guys. I have a lot of things I can't say. We're having people from our company fill in for my dad while he is traveling, and it gives you an opportunity to see when you call in to MedicareSchool.com to get assistance with your Medicare, who you're gonna be talking to, the types of people and the caliber of uh people that work here. My dad, Marvin, trains absolutely everyone who works here, and we consider it an honor and a privilege, something we uh uh take very highly. Uh a responsibility we uh let me. My dad, Marvin Music, trains everyone who works here, and it's a responsibility that we do not take lightly to make sure that the people that you talk to when you call in are going to be knowledgeable and equipped to help you solve your needs and provide great customer experiences. So welcome. Thank you for joining me today. In just a moment, you're going to learn about these three big enrollment periods, these timing mistakes that we see a lot of people make. Um but before then, if you ever want to call in to the show, whether you have a Medicare question, a Social Security question, a retirement question, I encourage you to call in. The phone number to call in is 833-824-2004, 833-824-2004. And when you call in, what I can promise is you're not going to be sold anything. You're not going to be asked to enroll into any plan. You're not going to be given uh advice that is bent around sales. The problem in this business is that most people, when you're starting Medicare, the people that you get to talk to are salespeople. And so the purpose of Medicare School Daily Show is to give you an opportunity to get your more complicated or even simple questions answered without anyone trying to sell you anything. So call in 11 a.m. to noon central time Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. noon, or 11 a.m. to noon central time, Monday to Thursday. Don't let that burning Medicare question go unanswered. So, Jesse, let's talk about these big three uh Medicare timing mistakes that we see a lot of people make. Why don't you tell me about them? But yeah, so the the first big mistake I think folks make is just not knowing the enrollment periods for A and B. So IEP, you know, you get three months prior to your birth month. Let me start here. Medicare always goes off the first of your birth month. So unless you're born on the first, your Medicare is gonna start the first of your birth month at 65, or your IEP window. You get three months prior to that to enroll, you get three months after that to enroll. After that, you could be subject to penalties. So folks just typically don't have a good understanding of that. And so we want to make sure that we line that out properly and make sure we understand that even though if we're gonna stay on employee coverage, you may still need part A, right? A lot of folks don't realize that. They just, I don't need to do anything. I've got 20 employees on the payroll, I'm gonna stay where I'm at. And that's true, but it makes your process so much simpler down the line to actually enroll into part B just by having that part A Medicare done. Okay, let's let's let's take this. So there's Part A, original Medicare Part A. That's the free one, right? And then you have Part B. So who needs to take part A? Everyone needs to take Part A unless you're contributing to an HSA. That would be like my big caveat is if you're contributing to an HSA, don't enroll into Part A until at least six months after stopping the contributions. Okay. You don't want to have any tax implications because of the HSA. If you're not on an HSA and you're on employee coverage where you've got 20 plus employees, that's creditable coverage in the eyes of Medicare. Yeah. And so that's really the caveat that we're looking for, right? Okay. So everyone can take part A. What about Part B? Part B. So whenever we move into Medicare, Part B, that's gonna become our primary insurance, right? So folks that take part A that stay on group health care, they've still got their primary coverage through their group health. Once we move into part B, that's gonna start a whole new window, especially for like Medigap OEP window, as far as our guaranteed eligibility into a supplement. Okay. So let's so take part A, basically the message up here is take part A while you have uh or as long as you don't use an HSA when you're eligible at 65. Correct. Yes, during your IEP. Part B don't have to if you have employer coverage, as long as it's over 20 employees. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. 20 plus employees on the payroll, and you've got to be an active employee. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Okay. So as long as you have that, then you don't have to take part B. And Part B is the one that costs. Like it's a base premiums 20290, right? Exactly. So you have to, you're gonna be you're gonna be uh paying that. And so for a lot of people, you don't have to take part B until um until you actually do end up retiring and wanting to use it like you said as primary coverage. Exactly. Okay, so part A, Part B, there's also a Part D timing. Uh there's a big I mean we see a lot of people make mistakes around that. So walk us through maybe who needs to get a drug plan and then what happens if you don't, and then how you can get one um in the future. You don't need a drug plan until you're gonna move into Medicare and take part B as your primary insurance. Whenever you do move into part B, you're gonna get a 63-day work. Start that whole section over. I need you to be like this on it. All right. Didn't you play music or something? You look like a musician. Oh, well, just stay up on it. Just handsome. I don't know. A little closer, a little closer. Close. Just talk into it. I'm trying to here. Okay. So you don't need to take part D until you're gonna take part B, until you're gonna move into Medicare and it's gonna become your primary insurance. Okay. Whenever we do take part B, that's gonna give you a 63-day window to go ahead and move into Part D. If you're somebody that's moving into Part D later. Now, Part D still applies to your IEP, right? So for folks that are turning 65, whenever you're gonna enroll into A and B, of course you're gonna take Part D as well. Okay. So it's the 63 days, I believe, has to deal with losing creditable employer coverage, right? Right. Yeah, I was getting a bit ahead of myself. It's if you're leaving that employer coverage. So for folks that took part A at 65 that didn't take part B. Trevor Burrus, Jr. They don't need to take part D if they're still working. Trevor Burrus, Exactly. As long as you have credible coverage. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Correct. Yeah. As long as you're on that credible work coverage, your drug coverage is provided through your group health. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Okay. So uh if you don't take drug coverage, so if when do you when can you enroll? Well, if you're enrolling after 65, it's gonna create what's called an SEP, a special enrollment period. Okay. And so you're gonna get an eight-month window for whenever you leave employer coverage to go ahead and enroll into Part B without penalty. That's how that eligibility window works. Okay. But for folks that are moving into Part B as well as Part D, that's where that 63-day window applies. You don't want to have more than a 63-day gap from your employer coverage to your Medicare Part D coverage because you're gonna get a 1% penalty for each month after that where you haven't enrolled into that credible Part D coverage. Okay. What's the 1%? How do you calculate that? They calculate that off the base national rate. So like the base national rate for your Part D drug plans is $38.99 per month. It's a 1% penalty per month. So what that equates to is basically a 39 cent penalty for every month that you don't carry Part D. Okay. So if you're if you let's say you didn't enroll in a drug plan when you were eligible, meaning you didn't have credible drug coverage. Right. And you did that for five years. So it's 60 months. So you're gonna have a $23.40 penalty. And how long does that last? That is a lifelong penalty. Is it every month or every year? It is every month. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's a monthly penalty, 1% per month. No way to get around that. No way to drop that. I think we had a caller last week and she called in and said, hey, I've got, or maybe it was a guy. Probably a guy. Guys tend to make it mess this up. We think we're invincible, right? That's true. Uh you know, I think he had gone without for three years, and his penalty was like 12 bucks for the rest of his life per month. So it's kind of crazy, especially when there are free drug plans. Like there's drug plans out here that are no cost. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. That's the big thing I think folks make a big mistake on. It's like, well, I don't take any drugs. I just don't need the Part D coverage. You know, I don't I'm not going to spend the money on that. Well, you don't have to. You're going to if you need drugs later with that penalty, but just take a zero dollar drug plan or a low-cost drug plan so that you don't look at those lifelong penalties. Yeah. We were talking uh before we got on about kind of so obviously there's the one the percent penalty, but there's a bigger impact as well. To not it's not just the one percent penalty is the reason you should take a drug plan. Um what is that? It really comes down to enrollment periods. So for folks that miss that part D enrollment window, for folks that don't have a special enrollment window from leave-in creditable coverage, if you just miss that window altogether, let's say, God forbid you get a cancer diagnosis in the middle of the year in March, you're not gonna be able to get that drug plan until AEP for January 1st of the following year. And so you're gonna look at a several month window where you don't have drug coverage to get the most important thing in your life. You know, it's it can create a really big problem for people. Yeah. And there are medications we see, I mean, fifteen, sixteen thousand dollars a month, and when that's the case, it's on you. Exactly. Like if you don't have a drug plan. The nice thing about having a drug plan, right, is there's a twenty one hundred dollar cap. Yeah, exactly. So it doesn't matter how much your meds are, as long as they're, you know, a covered med, then you you capping out at uh $2,100. Okay. Exactly. Let's talk about the third mistake or a third enrollment timing mistake uh that we see a lot of people make, and particularly this one has to do with the source of where you're getting your information. Yeah. Um most of the call centers that you may see 800 numbers on television or whatever it is, they are going to push one type of plan. And that type of plan is called a Medicare Advantage Plan. The reason they push it is because generally it's no cost and what's it's easy to sell something free, right? And so that's all they get trained on. And particularly the reason for that is if you take a Medicare Advantage plan, the company that sells it to you, whatever that broker or you know, they're gonna make more money than going into the alternative. Okay, so but there's something that everyone that you need to know if you're if you're beginning Medicare soon, whether that's turning 65 soon, or you're maybe over 65 and you're just now retiring, and that is this thing called the Medigap OEP. And I hate jargon. We're here to eliminate jargon, eliminate Medicare confusion, but Medigap OEP stands for uh open enrollment period. And that's a little bit different than other things. It's the Medigap or Medicare supplement, those mean the same thing. Um it's that period, uh, it's like open enrollment period to get that plan. So walk us through that and how it lasts, when it starts, who's eligible for it, yeah. Absolutely. So whenever we're turning 65 or whenever we're starting our part B, we're gonna get a six-month guaranteed acceptance window into that Medicare supplement. So you know, if you start your part B, you've got six months where they cannot ask you health questions, you know your guaranteed acceptance. Yeah. If we ever get past that six-month window, so for like folks that go on to the advantage plans for a couple years and then they want to look at the supplemental coverage later, you're gonna have to go through medical underwriting to do so, which is about 30 medical questions. If you can answer no to all those medical questions, you could likely get an approval. But if you've had any sort of major health concerns, heart attack, stroke, cancer diagnosis, diabetes, for example, those are the things that can stop us from moving into Medicare supplements, from into a meta-gap policy. And so you get you have another window. So you have six months leading up to your Part B effective date as well, to where you can actually go ahead and enroll into that Medigap policy, and that way you've got it taken care of. So a lot of folks don't realize that you have that window. You know, they think of the three-month opportunity. You shouldn't wait till after your Part B starts to get it. You should do it in advance. Trevor Burrus, Jr. You absolutely should do it in advance. You want Part B and your plan G or your plan N supplement to go into force the exact same day so that you're not on the hook for the gaps that Medicare doesn't cover by itself. Yeah. Yeah. And so if you miss that six-month window, right, that begins on your Part B date, and like you said, you can enroll in advance, but legally, nationally, right? You have from your Part B effective date when that starts your coverage start dates on your red, white, and blue card. You have six months to get a Medicare supplement. Can you switch? Like let's say you start with this company and you're still within that six-month window. Can you switch? Yeah, absolutely. As long as you're within that six-month window, they can't ask you health questions, you have the ability to switch. It's once we get past that six-month guaranteed acceptance that we would have to go through the medical questionnaire and qualify through medical underwriting. Yeah, because the insurance company doesn't have to take you unless you're there's like two or three states where that is not true. Right. But generally for everybody, you've got to answer medical health questions if you want a Medicare supplement, unless you take it right at the beginning. And this is what's really frustrating because when you call in one of these 800 numbers on television, what are you gonna get? You're gonna get somebody who's been trained on one thing, and that one product is what? A Medicare Advantage Plan. Right? Exactly. And that Medicare, that's all they've been trained on, doesn't make them a bad person, but the companies that are filling up your mailbox, the companies that are filling up the airwaves, they are there and they're only teaching their agents how to sell Medicare Advantage plans. And so the age is not bad, it's the people behind it. And the reason they're making that decision is because of the compensation and because it's easy, right? I get paid more and it's easy to sell somebody a free thing. Exactly. And so we get them enrolled, and then we don't care about them after the fact, right? Because we don't, the agents, usually in those call centers, it's like high churn, they're in for one season annual enrollment period, maybe a year, maybe two years max. They never see what happens ten years down the road like we do. And the service issues and the pre-authorizations and the network limitations, and my doctor left that plan of all those sorts of things. And it doesn't make Medicare Advantage plans bad such that no one should get them. It just makes it so that you need to be aware of these things. And unfortunately, most places that you call, they're not gonna tell you about it. And so missing this six-month Medigap OEP, again, I hate jargon, that open enrollment period that lasts for six months, beginning on your coverage part, your start, your part B date for Medicare is a huge, huge, huge mistake that you're not gonna find out unless you ask somebody or unless you know or you see some show like this or whatever, because most people aren't gonna talk about it. So we've got part A. I'm just gonna highlight some of the things you said. The big part A mistake is not taking part A at 65. Yes. Everyone should do that unless you have an HSA, right? Correct. There's no reason not to. Yeah, I agree. Right? Because they're probably gonna end up covering something if you have a hospitalization. Yes, and that's a second payer position. If you do have an HSA, then you shouldn't, because you can't contribute to an HSA plan if you have any port part of Medicare. Exactly right. And part A is free, so why not take it? Part B, you don't have to enroll into part B as long as you have employer group coverage based upon actively working and there's over 20 people on the plan. So you can delay part B. I've heard a lot of people say, well, if I don't get part B at age 65, I'm gonna be penalized. That's not true. And if you think about it, it makes sense, right? Why would the government penalize you for being on employer coverage? They would prefer you work until you're 150 years old and never have to cover you. So they're not gonna penalize you. They penalize you when you go without coverage, right? So part A, part B, part D mistake is not getting one. Yes. Right? If you just think I'm healthy, I don't need meds. Listen, in most places there's zero cost drug plans. Why wouldn't you get one? Right. Healthy today, you might not be in a year. Yeah. There's a penalty, of course, but then also, like you said, limited enrollment periods. If you get something, you're put on a medication that's $10,000 a month in the month of February, you're not gonna be able to get a drug plan until um October 1st or October 15th to December 7th is when you can enroll. That's called the annual enrollment period, with that coverage starting July, uh January 1st. And then, of course, I've already gone on a rant about the Medigap OEP six months. So cool. Thank you. Yeah, that's helpful. Let's talk to Esteban in Colorado. Esteban, are you there? Yes. Hi, welcome to Medicare School Daily. What questions do you have for us? On my um Medicare plan G. Yes, sir. I have this plan G for like three years already. It's on my third year. Okay. And I was wondering if this uh plan G has to be loosed every year or um just keep with it, or do I need to do anything? Esteban, hi, this is Jesse. The coverage never changes on that supplement. And so, I mean, your coverage will just continue rolling over year to year. There's nothing you necessarily need to do unless that rate has just gotten, you know, to where it's out of the budget and you want to look at shopping that rate. Something we could certainly do. It's just you'd have to go through that medical underwriting process, kind of like we were talking about earlier. Uh-huh. How's your how's your health been ever since you started Medicare? It's it's been it's been good. Good. I don't have any like big problems or anything. Okay, that's good. Are you taking some medications? Yes. Anything that's, you know, kind of noteworthy, or is it just kind of standard stuff? Um, mostly standard stuff. They already tried to give me something for cholesterol, but uh my cholesterol levels is not really that high. Okay. What's the uh what's the worst thing on your health record? Okay, when was that? And are you taking medication for it? So do you have the correct answer? Kind of okay. Okay. What's the uh what company are you with on your Plan G? Uh Cygna. It was Cygna, but they changed the name to probably Health Spring. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, and then what what are you paying for that? Do you know? Not really, no. Oh, okay. So that's good. Well, I uh I just I I I just looked up just because you had given your zip code to us and uh uh your uh date of birth. So I just looked because you're 67, right? The the Healthspring uh that Cigna plan is the second lowest plan in your zip code still. So I there's probably no reason to change it. You don't have to change it every year. The benefits are never gonna change. It's we only tell people, you know, if that premium starts going up, you can always look around to see if there's a better alternative from a price perspective. Um, but all the plans are standardized and it's yours for life. So I keep I can stay with yeah, and then your plan you have do you have a part D, like a drug plan? Yes. Okay. Any questions on that? On the plan B in December when I was trying to change it, or um I guess it was time to change it. Yeah. Because the other one was uh they raised the price a lot. Not a lot, but like $30 or something like that or $50, I don't know. Yeah. And uh I was trying to change it and I called you guys, and you guys direct me to the website. Yes, sir. To yeah. Were you able to kind of navigate through that? Yes, I'm not good with computers, so I did my best. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting. The insurance companies um and kind of Medicare, they've made a bunch of changes the last two or three years to the point that we as like you know, insurance brokers, we like they've pretty much pulled us out of drug plans. Like we're not able to even on the tools like that we would normally like shop and compare and enroll people in, because it used to be a service we offered for 15 years, you know, helping people with their drug plan. Then that all kind of changed, and so our tools don't even show the options. So what we've had to do and what you kind of experienced is say, hey, you know, let's let's use Medicare.gov, right? And you can go there, put in your medications, put in your pharmacy. And it it is pretty simple. It sounds like you navigated through it. What plan did you end up on? Did you end up on like welfare or humana? I guess my wife is saying hum Humana. Yeah, Humana. Yeah, and it's time in welfare. Yeah, okay. Yeah, and both of those are zero cost. Yes, very low premium. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. That's good. Well it sounds like you're squared away. So, you know, you can do the drug plan search every year. You know, at 10, 15 minutes is usually what it takes. Make sure you're on the right plan. Um, and then nothing changes on your on your plan G. So you can only change that. You do you you can change that if the premium ever gets to be too much. And so, you know, based on what I'm seeing here, uh what is your spouse is is your wife on a plan as well? Yes. Okay, are you guys getting that? Uh is she on Cigna as well? Yeah, okay. So do you guys you guys should be getting a a household discount with that? Is does that sound right? Yeah, I don't know if I got it on. Okay, okay. Well, uh yeah, I would probably uh do you know what? Yeah, maybe figure out what your rate is. You can call into our office and they you know they'd be happy to look at that with you. But once you type in that multi-policy discount, you that Signa plan is still the lowest you're actually number one lowest now because of that household discount. So that's a good plan. I wouldn't make any changes, is my point. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I think I don't know if they deduct like every they charge me like every three months or something like that. Uh maybe if you're on a quarterly billing, that could be the case. Yeah. Some people do monthly, some people do quarterly. Yeah. Yeah, like every three months we both of us we uh between the both of us we pay like $300 or something like that. Okay, it's not too bad. Not too bad at all. Yeah. Okay. Well, hey, Esteban, yeah, you got any other questions? No, that's it. I I was wondering about the mostly the the plan G and WA, actually plan B as well, because I didn't know if I was doing right. No, it sounds like you've got it all you've got it all sorted out. You're you're you're a Medicare expert now. You're doing great. Okay, well, thank you very much. Thanks, Esteban. Take care. Thanks. You too. Bye-bye. So there's two different types of discounts. I think this is interesting. Uh generally two different types of discounts. Uh obviously we have like a standard rate, what everyone will pay. And then you have uh what's called a living with someone discount. So this is generally if you're living how what's the age? Is it like over fifty or over sixty? Yeah. So if you're living with someone who is over fifty, um, they don't even have to be on the policy, they don't even have to be on Medicare. You can get with some carriers a discount for that, right? And that's um what, five, seven percent, maybe somewhere. Five to seven percent. And then there are some carriers who have a multi-policy discount. So like in Esteban's case, him and his wife both had the same carrier, both had a plan G, and likely he's getting somewhere between uh, what, 12 to 15 percent? Is that fair? In some states it's 20 on the theory. So like it's a pretty significant discount. It is, yeah. It makes a huge difference. If you you're both on the same uh the same same policy or the same carrier at least. Yeah. So make sure whenever your spouse goes on that you're looking at, okay, where are there household discounts available, whether that's a living with someone or a ma uh, you know, uh on the same policy. Right. Emmett in Georgia, welcome to Medicare School Daily. What question do you have for us? Hi, um so I went on Medicare uh Part B and got the uh plan N back in March, and then I moved to the uh plan G in April to follow that through the Medicare school, follow that through the Medicare school. Okay, and I saw a bunch of doctors uh in March, unfortunately, it wasn't planned. Sure. And uh I'm now getting bills from uh the doctor's office and telephone calls, and um they're saying they haven't been paid. I have uh signal health spring, and so I should call the Medicare Medicare people themselves, and the claims are showing up on their website and they're processed. And uh but Health Spring says they never received a claim. I've actually even talked to some of the doctor's office and gave them the information off the cards and gave them the two different policy numbers, but Healthspring still doesn't have any claims from anybody. How long does it take Medicare to actually get those claims over to uh Health Springs? Okay, let's let's let's talk through something real quick. So uh uh is both the was both the N and the G both with Healthspring? So when you switched, okay, so everything's with Health Spring. Um have you given the different policy numbers to the doctor? Yes. Okay. So generally, my understanding is is they'll submit the claims, Medicare will pay their part, but they are going to need to also send the claim over to Healthspring. So is that not happening? Are they just waiting around for Medicare or I I don't know. I um I mean generally generally claims are paid very quickly with with Cygna. So it it sounds like it sounds like an issue on the doctor's side um of them maybe not maybe not you know providing the correct information or going through the correct process. Do they do they work with a lot of Medicare folks, do you know? Oh yeah. It's a cardiologist and uh the hospital said the same thing. What did they say? They said they filed it, you know, with the with the uh the end plan. Okay. Yeah, I think it was the example. And you know, they haven't been paid either. Yeah, that that is very strange. Do you know if you uh when you log into have you like logged into your Medicare.gov, does it show your coverage as being original Medicare A and B? Then does it list your Medicare supplement plan as well on there? You know, I don't remember seeing the the supplemental plan. I'll go back and do that. Yeah, because here's what it could be there's an issue called crossover. Um and I wonder if there's sometimes what happens with with uh have you had you seen all of these providers previously under your group coverage? No. Well one of them, one of them, yes, but uh all the rest of them are new. Okay, so you'd never seen them with and nobody's gotten paid or just a few of them? No, nobody's gotten paid by Healthpring. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah. Um so there's this thing called. Tell me about this crossover thing. Yeah, so the crossover is what what oftentimes will happen with folks is their first time on Medicare, uh, and their first time using a service, going to see their doctor, going to a provider, whatever it is, is somewhere in the system there's this issue that gets messed up where Medicare gets billed, but then also your uh old insurance gets billed. And it's usually just somewhere in the provider, they build the wrong, they build, you know, kind of have the wrong thing. So you have to call Medicare, there's the crossover uh department, and then they will adjust everything on their end. That might be your issue, though it doesn't really sound like it is. Um here's what here's what I think I'd like for you to do. I'm gonna give you our customer service line and I want you to call in, because you it sounds like you worked with Medicare School here to sort to get all that set up. I want you to call in to us uh to our customer service line and they will they will walk through this with you to make sure that all the claims are getting paid. Um and it sounds like you've already had the doctors try to rerun it. Is that right? Yes. Most recent ones, yeah. Yeah. Have you called Cygna yet and asked them if they've gotten any bills? Yeah, I've called Health Springs. I've called them twice now. And what did Health Springs say? They don't have any claims. And they said don't they said rest assured your policy is you know it's enforced because I was worried they hadn't gotten the payments or something. How long ago was this? I mean, this is some months ago, month or two ago, right? It should have already happened. Yeah, I called them I called them last month and then I've called them already uh well no, I called them in April, at the end of April, and then I called them in the middle of May. Yes. And uh 'cause because I could see it, because I was looking for my the whole thing served me trying to find my deductibles to see which you know deductibles I was responsible for. Sure. I was easily able to to figure that out. Yeah. And uh But they uh I mean they even have a bill on here that one of the charges, I have four charges for one cardiologist group. And um they basically they have one that I have to pay as deductible, but I don't want to pay it until um until this gets resolved because otherwise Yeah, yeah, you couldn't apply to their own bill. I'm gonna give you the I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you two numbers. I'm gonna give you our office number to call in and get assistance. We can help you walk through this. Um you got your pen ready? Give me half a second. Okay. I got the one for the main customer office. Okay. Yeah, yeah, that that's the number. Yeah, you could just call that. That's fine. Um, but then I'm also giving you the Medicare, like they call it a benefits coordination and recovery center. It's a big word, but it's the crossover section. Um this would be calling Medicare. Yeah, it's 855-798 798-2627. 2627. And when you call in, you want to make sure you want to ask Medicare, call them and make sure, hey, do you guys have my Medicare supplement on file there? Like, do they do they show that? It'd be and then because yeah, you need to check that. Why don't you check that first? Call in, ask them if they've got your your supplement plan on file, then explain to them that your supplement plan has not been getting the bills, and they may be able to push those through. Okay. All right, great. And then if you get stuck if you get stuck there, call into our office and let us will let us try another shot at figuring out what the deal is. So but that's very strange. That's very rare. That shouldn't be happening. Yeah. Okay. Well, listen, I really appreciate it. Um I watch you guys every day. Okay, well, awesome. Hey, thank you so much. Take care. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye-bye. What happens generally is a doctor uh that you've been going to for forever, first time you're on Medicare, you know, they just run your old insurance and then it throws everything off and all that, so you got to call us 855-798-2627, and then they sort it all out and update the system so that all the billing happens correctly. Um that's maybe what's going on, probably with her. So anytime on a supplement, I feel like anytime you have billing issues, it's 99 times out of a hundred a billing and coding issue. Yes. Not a coverage issue. Yeah. You know, it's it's always just something's been crossed, something that can be resolved. That is strange, though. That's the wrinkle there is she was on a plan N and then a plan G, but I it still shouldn't be causing issues. It should play pay how it is. It should have been smooth. Yeah, you know. If you use Facebook and you want to talk to some people who are already on Medicare and get some questions answered, I want to encourage you to uh join our Facebook group, open up your Facebook app, type in Medicare School Community, I think it's called. Yeah, Medicare School Community, and uh you can join the group and get questions answered by real people that are already on Medicare. So we've got uh a couple of questions here today that we're going to go over. Uh Jeff, thank you for writing in. You said, Do I have to have my Medicare card to be able to make plan selections? What do you think, Jesse? That's a great question. If we're talking about Medigap, like a plan G or a plan N, no. You actually don't need your Medicare card or your Medicare number. That's something that we can get done just with your personal info. You know, that's something we can schedule in advance of your Medicare. It's designed that way. You can do it before you have a Medicare number. Absolutely. Right. Up to six months in itself. You will have to add that. We will. You will have to get us the Medicare number down the line, something we'd have to update for you for sure. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And I think that opens up an opportunity. So the reason we can do that for a Medigap plan, right? Is because the Medic Medigap or Medicare supplement plan is only going to pay after Medicare pays. So the insurance company has no liability, or they're not saying, yes, I'm going to cover this guy if if if it even if Medicare isn't there, because they are only going to pay the difference after Medicare pays, right? And that's how Medicare supplement plans work. You go to the doctor, you go to the hospital, whatever it is, those bills get submitted. Medicare pays their part. Once Medicare pays their part, that supplemental plan only then will pay the difference. And so they have no risk to go ahead and say, yeah, we'll we'll offer you coverage because it's standardized coverage number one, and it's only going to be paid after Medicare. Right. What about uh uh Medicare Advantage plans or Medicare prescription drug plans? Do you need a Medicare number? You will in fact need a Medicare number for both Part D as well as MAPD advantage plans, yeah. Okay. So you gotta wait on that. Now you can do the shopping process. You can kind of choose what plans you want in advance. But if you don't and this is comes back to what I think we were talking about earlier, which is you you made the comment that if you tark take part A at 65 and then delay, you don't retire till later in life, you know, 66, 67, 68, whatever it is, um, having that Medicare number just makes it easy for you because you've got you've got a Medicare number already in place, and so you can do the enrollment for the drug plan. You can do the enrollment for the Medicare Advantage Plan. Well, right. And that Medicare number is going to stay the same, right? Even when you add Part B, you add part D, it's still gonna be the same Medicare number. So yeah, it's certainly well served to have it and be able to use it. Okay. So for Advantage Plan, Drug Plan, yes, you need a Medicare number for a Medicare supplement plan, you don't need it. You can get it after the fact. Um, and the reason for that is they only pay after Medicare pay, so there's no liability they are accepting. I started Medicare uh on an advantage plan in August of 2025 when I retired from my job. Okay. Isn't there a so-called 12-month trial period where I can switch a Medigap plan without underwriting, which expires July 31st, 2026. I'm in the state of Washington, thank you. As long as A, B, and C went active the same date, then yes, you get a 12-month trial right to where you can move back into a you know, you can get a supplement without medical underwriting. Now, if your part C went active a month or two after that, then that kind of skews the trial right, you know. Aaron Ross Powell Trial rights are uh here's what I would say. Call in, we can kind of work through the situation. Trial rights sound good. There's some hoops to got to jump through. You gotta have everything kind of teed up and lined up. We talk to people who think, oh, I'm gonna do this trial right period, save money on a Medicare supplement, you know, premium-wise for nine to twelve months, whatever it is, and switch to a supplement. Um it's great in theory, um, but you really do have to make sure everything's lined up well. There's paperwork, there's documentation, you're gonna play a waiting game for an insurance carrier, it becomes a very stressful thing. The trial period is um is so-called. Like she actually had a good term. Like it's there kind of often. Right. But you gotta prove and you gotta jump through hoops because the insurance company, they know the Medicare supplement plan, like ah, if they're trying to use a trial right, it's probably because something came up in their health. And so when we accept them, uh, you know, we're gonna we're probably gonna get have to pay out a lot of bills. And so we're only going to we're gonna grind them down and make sure they prove that they really have this right. It's kind of crazy, but it's how it works. Um, is there in Washington, are there some special underwriting rules? Is it a anniversary or birthday state or something? The state of Washington? Yeah. Do you know? Not that I'm aware of, but I could be wrong on that. When you are on a Medicare supplement plan, or maybe you're on a Medicare Advantage plan and you want to get into a Medicare supplement. So you're switching from a Medicare supplement to another Medicare supplement, like the lady we just talked to. Um, other except she was probably right beginning in Medicare, uh, that six-month OEP period. Right. So when you're trying to get into a Medicare supplement plan, oftentimes, almost always, you are gonna have to answer some health questions, uh, except when you first start Medicare. So there are five conditions we're gonna be talking about tomorrow that will basically guarantee you're not able to get a Medicare supplement plan if you missed that initial uh Medigap OEP that we talked about earlier. So join us tomorrow. You're gonna learn what those five conditions are uh so that you make sure you're never stuck in a situation without the coverage that you want.