Important Medicare Dates

Open Enrollment is a yearly opportunity for Medicare patients to make changes to the way they receive their Medicare Benefits.

During Open Enrollment, patients can choose to newly enroll into a Medicare Part D Plan to cover medications, enroll into a Medicare Advantage Plan, change Medicare Advantage Plan or disenroll from a Medicare Advantage Plan and revert to Traditional Medicare.

Medicare Vs. Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage plans offer many benefits, but they also come with some drawbacks.

Benefits:

• Most of them include Medicare Part D benefits for drug coverage.
• They include benefits that Medicare does not, such as Dental, Vision and Gym Memberships.
• They often have no additional costs beyond the regular Medicare premium, and they often cover the usual Medicare deductibles and coinsurance.

Drawbacks:

• Many of them have limited networks and/or provider participation, so specialty care can be hard to find.
• Some of the plans with better benefits have premiums separate from the Medicare premium.

We encourage our patients to explore all their options. We have found Medicare Advantage plans to be a great way to get more benefits and better drug coverage without the additional expense that can come from Part D plans or Supplemental Plans.

We participate in Medicare Advantage plans with Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Health Care, Cigna, Aetna, WellCare and Prominence Health Plans. BCBS tends to have the biggest network but the lower level of extra benefits while the others have more benefits but more limited plans. PPO plans give patients the most flexibility in seeing providers.

The best resource to find out about the different plans available are the websites of the insurance companies. There are several local insurance agencies who specialize in Medicare Advantage plans but patients need to be sure the agency is independent and knowledgeable about all insurance plans. The most important thing to consider when choosing a plan is whether or not you will still have access to the doctors, facilities and medications that you want and need.

Important Marketplace Dates

Understanding the Medical Insurance Marketplace

The Marketplace Open Enrollment period is the primary time of year for most people who don’t have employer-sponsored insurance or don't qualify for Medicare or Medicaid to sign up for health insurance.

During Open Enrollment, you can visit healthcare.gov, enter your personal and family information and get a list of all the health plans that are available to you.  You may even qualify for government help to cover all or part of your premium.
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Insurance Flavors and Terminology

Browsing the plans can be confusing due to all the terminology you will encounter.
Briefly, we will cover some of the more common terms here:

These are the most common terms you will encounter. However, if you have any questions you can always reach out to us and we will be happy to help you sort it all out.