While
you'd normally have to wait a full year to change your coverage, this year, you
might qualify for an exception.
Maurie Backman (TMFBookNerd) Author Bio
Jan 18, 2020 at 10:52AM
Seniors enrolled in Medicare have the option to switch plans
during the program's annual open enrollment period, which runs
every year from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7. During that time, seniors can switch
from original Medicare to Medicare Advantage or vice versa, drop an
Advantage plan and select a new one, or switch Part D drug plans.
Often, the decision to switch plans will boil
down to cost. Advantage and Part D plans' scope of coverage can change from one
year to the next, so seniors are generally advised to explore their coverage
choices every fall.
This past open enrollment, Medicare also rolled
out a newly updated plan finder fool whose purpose is to help seniors navigate
their health coverage choices and find the most
cost-effective options. Though the tool has existed for quite some time, it hadn't
been updated for roughly a decade, so the thought was that seniors would
finally have an easier time making Medicare-related decisions.
Unfortunately, things didn't really turn out
that way. The reason? Glitches with that plan finder have apparently caused a
large number of seniors to choose the wrong plans, and pay the price after the
fact.
How Medicare's plan
finder changed
The purpose of the plan finder revamp was to
make it easier for seniors to compare plan costs. The problem? While the tool
allows users to sort through their plan options by lowest monthly premium or
lowest deductible, it apparently has done a poor job of breaking down plan
choices by overall cost. That's problematic, because while a
lower monthly premium, for example, could produce some level of savings, if the
flip side to that is higher out-of-pocket costs for prescription refills, those
enrolled in that plan may not actually save any money. Quite the contrary --
they could end up paying more for coverage.
Furthermore, there have been some reports of the
plan finder tool simply displaying incorrect pricing data, which means some
seniors may have been making decisions based on faulty data.
The chance to choose a
better plan
If your new Medicare plan is more expensive than
you thought it would be, and the reason boils down to bad information you
received from Medicare's plan finder, you're not necessarily out of luck. While
you'd normally need to wait until this fall's open enrollment period to change
your coverage, and wait until 2021 for your new plan to take effect, because of
widespread problems with the plan finder, Medicare is making exceptions this
year. Specifically, it's giving seniors who show that they were misled by the
plan finder a special enrollment period to change their coverage.
Normally, you'll only qualify for one of these
periods under limited circumstances, such as if you move outside your plan's
service area, move back to the U.S. after living abroad, or lose Medicaid
coverage. But this year, you get a do-over if you made a bad choice because you
relied on a tool that was supposed to have worked, but didn't. If that's the
case, call 1-800-MEDICARE and explain what happened. From there, you'll be
given guidance as to whether you are indeed eligible for a special enrollment
period, and how long you have to find a more suitable plan.
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