2025 Medicare And Your Handbook

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Finishing Well, brought to you by CardinalGuide.com with certified financial planner Hans Scheil, best-selling author and financial planner, helping families finish well for over 40 years. On Finishing Well, we'll examine both biblical and practical knowledge to assist families in finishing well, including discussions on managing Social Security, Medicare, IRAs, long-term care, life insurance, investments, and taxes.

Now, let's get started with Finishing Well. Welcome to Finishing Well with Surface Planner Hans Scheil and today's show, Medicare and Your Handbook for 2025. And again, you may know that you get a handbook every year. You get one in the mail. You also get an email telling you that it's there.

It's a bit confusing if you've ever tried to read it or make any sense out of it, but it is a wonderful resource. And so, we hope through this video today you can get a better idea of that. But I was also thinking from a biblical standpoint, you may know that there's been no real update to the bottom. The original manuscript is fortunately, you know, once and for all, just absolutely amazing and perfect. And so, no need to change anything or update.

However, For some people, I realize that it's confusing and they've struggled to read it. And I would first of all add that the easiest or the best advice I ever got on that was to pray before you ever try to read it, to ask the Holy Spirit to help you to understand it. But the neat thing is, it really can be broken down as simply as this for the.

So you get the basic idea in four simple parts. Number one, God made it in Genesis. God made the world and it was very good, right? Number two, we broke it in Genesis 3 and on and on. If you read the rest of the story, you will see how sin entered and everything got messed up and families certainly struggle.

Great news is the New Testament is coming where Jesus fixes it. That's step three. That's the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. God sent Jesus to rescue us through his life and resurrection. And number four, God Makes it new.

So, Acts through Revelation, Jesus sends His Spirit, starts the church, and promises to return and make all things new. And the idea of that. You know, if he made all things new, Hans, I can hardly see what hardly wait to see what happens with Medicare. I think it's a whole lot simpler. Just on a note on that before we get to Medicare, you know, is is As you know personally, I read a book of the Bible.

Every day in order. And I do pray. Quickly, I asked the Holy Spirit to Um Speak to me through the Bible. And what I've noticed. especially lately is God talking to me all day long.

Whereas it used to be something I'd noticed maybe once a week or maybe not even that often where I would I would just have a sense that God's speaking to me and by Reading a book of the Bible every day. You know, it just has him talking to me all the time. It's like I got an ongoing dialogue with him.

So, and I have you to thank for that, Robbie. Oh, I I can tell you that That's one of the things, just basics of of how wonderful it is to know God and is to know him through his word and to continue to do that. And I that's so exciting. I'm so glad. And I feel the same exact way.

So Uh and part of that is Obviously, reflected in this desire to help people understand a very complicated issue in Medicare because it's Alphabet Sioux.

Well, it is. And so one of the things is if you're throwing this book out every year when it comes, it's generally in November. Um I'd suggest that you just hang on to it in some place And I wouldn't suggest sitting down and trying to read it all. because it's just going to take you in a circle. But it's a nice reference book.

Um to when you have a question about Medicare, you can just look it up in the index. And obviously, if you're one of our clients or one of our listeners, you can just call us up and ask us questions. But it It is a good summary. It's just too long and it's too far in depth. And so Why are we talking about it today?

Well, we're talking about it because I want to. Put I like having the documentation. out there for people. of everything that I'm teaching on in both the radio show and the videos. Yeah, and I I would add that You know, it's it doesn't seem like it's all that necessary until it becomes necessary.

Like all of a sudden you find out that, oh my goodness, here was this accident and it looks like you're going to have to go to rehab and as How is Medicare going to cover that? And all of a sudden, you have questions, and you may have some understanding, but. In those moments of crisis, it's pretty nice to have that book around to go, okay, well, let me go check the book, right? Sure. Yeah, if you watch the video on YouTube that corresponds with today's show, or you go to CardinalGuide.com, And find today's show on the radio or the podcast or the videos right there.

And in the show notes of the video is the Medicare and You handbook 2025. You can also get it by Googling. You just Google Medicare and You 2025 and it'll come right up in a PDF thing.

So enough about the book. What I'm going to do today is just give a short lesson on Medicare, a general lesson, talk about what you need to know, and I'm going to make references to the page numbers where you can read about this.

So the first most basic thing you need to know about Medicare is it has four parts to it. Part A, Part B, Part C and Part D. And Part A is your hospital and skilled nursing home. Part B is everything but the hospital for outpatient. which is where most of the money is spent.

on Medicare into Part B. doctors, outpatient outpatient surgery tests anything outside the hospital. Part C really doesn't stand by itself. What Part C is, is when you turn your Part A and your Part B or your hospital and doctor original Medicare, you turn it into a Medicare Advantage plan.

So you're getting your Part A and Part B. through a private insurance company on Part C.

So that's a move called Medicare Advantage. And then Part D. is where your drugs are covered, your prescription drugs.

So You know, there's four parts to Medicare, Part A, comes at no cost to you for most people. Part B has a basic cost in twenty twenty five of one hundred eighty five bucks a month. If you're getting Social Security, they take it out of your Social Security check. And if you're subject to Irma, or the Medicare surcharge because you have a high income, you can be paying as much as six to seven hundred a month for Medicare Part B. And as a side note, if you've got difficulty with that, give me a call and we can talk about some ways you can do something about that.

Um Part C, we're not going to be talking a lot about Medicare Advantage In this radio show, it's going to be mostly talking about. original Medicare, Part A and Part B. Yeah, from my standpoint, you know, therein lies the. Um Yeah. you know, why they went.

Part A, Part B, and then they come out with something that really is not related from my standpoint to Part A or Part B, or is, you know, you would think Part C would be in addition to or something else. But Part C, if you go to Medicare Advantage, you've got a completely different kind of Medicare than if you have Part A and Part B, right? Oh yeah. But let me help you a little bit on that. Part A.

And Part B were invented in nineteen sixty five when Medicare first started. And it was simple then. You had Part A and you had part B and then you had a supplement. Part C and Part D were invented in two thousand five, two thousand six. Like forty years later.

Yeah. I don't know, it was just pretty easy. Let's call this new thing Part C and then we're going to add drugs. Let's just call it Part D. And it is very confusing.

Okay.

So hopefully what I just went through a summary maybe helped a little bit. Right. But if that's all we talk about today, we're not going to be adding a lot of substance to it.

So The next point that I want to bring up is signing up for Medicare at age sixty five.

Okay.

That's on pages fifteen to twenty four in the book. is the things you need to consider with that. And My suggestion is as you would call us Or you would get in touch with somebody like us. Who can give you a good Medicare explanation? Because if you make mistakes during this process, Some of them are going to sting you for the rest of your life.

So you need to get this right. But if you're signing up for Medicare at sixty five. the first thing you need to do is decide are you still working? And are you covered by group insurance That is from a large employer. And if you are, You don't have to sign up for Medicare Part B, and you don't even need Part A.

uh specifically um because you got group insurance. And if your spouse is still working and covering you on the group insurance. and you're satisfied with it, Um you still need to go through all the steps because we need to make sure you're doing the right thing. But More than likely you can just decline signing up for Medicare and just wait And cheery either you or your spouse retires, and the grip insurance is gone, and now you need Medicare, and you can sign up for it then. Yeah.

I don't suggest making this decision on your own without talking to a professional, but that could save you a lot of premiums. For Medicare, if you're getting satisfactory insurance from your employer. Exactly.

Now when I said a large group earlier, what I'm talking about is a group larger than twenty.

So if your employer your spouse's employer. has more than twenty employees. They're considered a large group. And then that will get you out of the penalties for late sign up for Medicare. Yeah.

We want to get into penalties today too deep because we're not going to go real deep. We have other shows about that. Right. You can't use COBRA, so if you're covered under COBRA, and you're past sixty-five That doesn't work as an excuse for not signing up for Medicare. This is a good place to pause and remind you that this show is brought to you by Cardinal Guide, CardinalGuide.com.

And if you go to CardinalGuide.com, there are seven worry tabs or menu items. And one of those is Medicare. Pretty simple. And if you click on that one, not only will you obviously get to hear this show again, but you can see a video of the same lines as well as show notes with all the documentation and the Information that's actually in the handbook and the pages that we're talking about. And of course, there you'll also find the complete cardinal guide to Hans's book, the complete cardinal guide to planning for living in retirement, and of course, the all-famous, very important contact Hans or Tom page, which is exactly what we were talking about right before we started talking about this.

That in certain circumstances, you know, how much easier would it be just to give them a call and figure out what's right for you?

So, we'll be right back with a whole lot more on 2025 Medicare and Your Handbook. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC, abbreviated BCM. a registered investment advisor. BCM and Cardinal Advisors are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.

Cardinal Advisors is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other government agency. Welcome back to Finishing Well with Certified Financial Planner. Hans Scheil, and today's show is 2025 Medicare and You Handbook. That's the name of the handbook, Medicare and You. I just learned that during the break.

And so getting back to this, which obviously even that part had me confused on, we got to simplify it. Yeah, so The Medicare new book is a great resource I read it. Every year I'm suggesting That you don't read it, but that you keep it and you have it as a reference point. Or if you want to back check me a little bit. or if you want to look for some of those details, Thank you.

Where I'm going to cover something quickly, and I'm not telling you the whole story here. You can go in and find it in the book, and you can read it. in a little more depth, and then if you got a question about something like that, call me up. And I'll be glad to talk to you about it.

So One of the big things we get questioned about all the time is Is this covered by Medicare? Is that covered?

So on Pages fifty five and fifty six, it goes over a list of the stuff that's not covered. And Let's just go through them. Eye exams.

Now a lot of people will think this means cataracts. And it doesn't mean cataracts. When you have cataract surgery, that's going to pay up. This is talking about when you get your eyes checked to see if your prescription glasses have changed. Medicare doesn't cover that.

It doesn't cover long-term care. custodial long term care. It just doesn't. Wow. Doesn't pay for cosmetic surgery.

Unless it was through an accident or something. But you just want to get a nose job or try to somehow make yourself prettier than God made you, you're going to pay for it yourself if you're on Medicare. done pay for massage. Um We won't pay for a physical exam. Although I think my doctor kind of gets around this by Um checking my high blood pressure every year.

I I don't so then he does the whole exam.

So somehow I get mine paved. Um but um just straight out, if you just went to the doctor and wanted to do a well check or whatever, it's not covered. Hearing aids are not covered. which I have a brand new pair of them and paid for them myself. You can buy separate insurance for that if you wanted.

Uh from us. It doesn't pay for these concierge care things. I have some acquaintances that I know that they pay a doctor like one thousand five hundred bucks a year or two thousand bucks a year, and then he still bills insurance and Medicare for but that's just a separate fee to be one of his special patients or her special patients. you don't it doesn't cover that, and it doesn't cover most dental care.

So that's and I'm sure there's some other things not covered, but just for the purposes of the video, I went through some of the highlights.

So you got any reaction to that, Ron? Yeah, I I think that that's some critical information that is telling you that Health care is one of the largest considerations or worries for most people in retirement is this is going to become more and more an issue. And so getting up to date on these things and listening to the videos or watching the videos, listening to the radio shows is really, really helpful. Sure has been for me because I would have been totally confused. Yeah.

Yeah, We just get questioned about that all the time, and then people, why not? Why not?

Well, it's Medicare. They're going to exclude things, and most of those things. are excluded on regular under sixty five insurance anyhow, or group insurance or Affordable Care Act stuff.

So that that's pretty pretty routine.

So Jumping to the next topic that's on Pages fifty seven to sixty is explaining to you what original Medicare is. and we didn't have to use the word original. way back when, we just called it Medicare. But ever since Medicare Advantage came out, we have made that distinction. You got original Medicare which is part A and Part B.

And then you have Medicare Advantage which is Not original Medicare, it's taking your Medicare and turning it in and receiving it from a private insurance company. Um And so I want to make that distinction. And fi pages fifty seven to sixty explain what is original Medicare. And the biggest place that this makes a difference to you if you have Medicare. is you don't have to Have a primary doctor.

You don't have to get referrals to go to. specialists, you can just go straight to the specialist. You don't have a network, you don't have a list of doctors, that you have to go to to get paid. You don't have to get referrals. I mean, it has a lot of freedom in original Medicare, where all you have to do is find a doctor that takes Medicare.

which most of them do. And the negative to original Medicare Especially as opposed to Medicare Advantage, there's no yearly limit. on your out-of-pockets.

So Medicare Part B pays eighty percent of approved charges. Yeah. There's no limit or no cap on the 20%. which would be out of you're out of pocket.

Now, we're going to talk in just a minute about Medicare supplements. That's why you buy a Medicare supplement. To go in conjunction with Original Medicare. And when you do that, Now there is a yearly limit on the out of pocket. It's called zero.

Because the Medicare itself pays eighty percent, the Medicare supplement pays twenty percent. And if you have a Plan G, it's even going to pay excess charges Um So you're going to have no out of pocket on the Medicare Part B other than the deductible. Yeah, that's You know, that's kind of what I'm looking forward to. Or I've seen extremely handy, obviously, when you have that and You know, that that's the coverage I didn't have any idea actually, you know, before I started doing these shows with you. Oh yeah, it's just We have a lot of people that call us up and say just I haven't gotten any bills.

I mean, it just I I've gotten a bunch of stuff from Medicare But I haven't even read that. But I've just been waiting for the bill from the hospital or the doctor, and I'm telling you, it's not coming. If you got a Med original Medicare and you got a Plan G, you know, you somewhere along the line had to pay the first two hundred and fifty six dollars of Part B deductible. Maybe you did that when you went to the doctor in January and February. But after that, Um borrowing anything really odd or Out of the ballpark.

Between the original Medicare and the Plan G Medicare supplement, It's all paid. It's really kind of hard to believe. It really, really was. In my father's case, you know, when he was going to the hospital. Um You know, almost every other week there near the end, in ambulances and all other sorts of things that were going on, all sorts of tests, this and that.

And like you said, there were no bills. It was unbelievable. Oh yeah. So on pages seventy five to seventy eight in the Medicare and you handbook, It goes over Medicare supplements.

sometimes called Meda Gap. Yeah. The biggest thing you need to know about this is the government standardized these policies. over 30 years ago. And they made them all companies sell the exact same policies.

So and they named him A B C D blah blah blah blah blah. And so when you get a plan G, which is the best Available plan for people that went on Medicare 2020 or after. Um the plan G And you buy it from Mutual of Omaha, or you buy it from Blue Cross, or you buy it from Aetna, or any one of a list of other companies who We represent all those. Um It's exactly the same policy. It really doesn't matter.

The only thing that's different is the price. And that's true in all states other than Minnesota. Massachusetts and Wisconsin.

Now in the other forty seven states, They all offer plan G's, plan N's. They're all identical, and then most of them charge different prices. And that's another show. We get into that. That's why we represent most of them.

so that we are able to sit down and shop for our customers. And we're in all fifty states in the District of Columbia, so if you're picking this up on a podcast, somewhere Out there, we can help you there too. We got customers in all fifty states in DC. And there isn't really a lot more to say about original Medicare combined with a supplement is if you can afford the premium for the supplement, Um It's the way to go. Yeah, and to me it's just highly unusual.

The whole idea, when I originally heard it, that wait a minute, it's standardized, so whether you get mutual OMA or you get AARP or whatever you get, it's exactly the same coverage. It was kind of mind-blowing when you first start to see that. But then when you realize the advantage of talking to somebody like Hans that represents all the different ones, so you can see simply, you know, and I I guess I don't understand to a great extent why there's such a variance in price, but there's a huge variance in price between the different ones in spite of the exact same coverage. But that's why it it it helps to call Hans. The next time we do a show, That'll be the topic.

We'll talk about why those prices show on Medicare.

So I want to get in a couple of things before we're done here. The Medicare drug program, Part D, is pages seventy nine to eighty three. Yeah. Um If there's any part of Medicare that people really get frustrated with, it's this. because it's just why is it this way?

Why it just is. And What I want to tell you is something was passed a couple of years ago that went in effect this year for the first time is your maximum out of pocket if you have a Part D plan, is two thousand dollars. And um That sounds like a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money compared to what people could pay out of pocket before. Before this $2,000 cap was put in there. And so I just hit mine in May.

Where I was sending them two hundred dollars, four hundred dollars at the drugstore. And then all of a sudden, they said the charges today are zero because I reached that two thousand out of pocket. And now for the rest of the year, I got no copayment.

So for you people that have a lot of medicines that you're taking, if that's any consolation. And we work on these for people during the fall of the year, during that open enrollment period. But we'll talk to you about it now. If you need help with this, give us a call, and we'll be glad to help you out. And the last thing I wanted to throw in there real quick is just talking about Irma.

We've done other shows on Irma. That's the income-related monthly adjustment amount. It's the tax on well-to-do people on Medicare. I'm not going to say much about it other than it's there, and possibly there's things we can do about it. Yeah.

you know, it's an excess charge on your Part B and your Part D.

So There you go. And that's a great time to say you need to call them. Go to cardinalguide.com. And at cardinalguide.com, there's the contact page, right, where you can contact Hans or Tom, as well as the Seven Warriors tabs today was on Medicare and Hans' book, The Complete Cardinal Guide: The Planning for and Living in Retirement. It's all there at cardinalguide.com.

Well, thank you, Hans. Great show. Yeah, thank you and God bless you. The opinions expressed by Hans Scheil and guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of this radio station. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable, although it should not be relied upon as such.

Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Past performance cannot be used as an indicator to determine future results. Any strategies mentioned may not be suitable for everyone. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for you.

Before acting on any information mentioned, please consult with a qualified tax or investment advisor to determine if it's suitable for your specific situation. Finishing Well is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject covered. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstrone Capital Management LLC, abbreviated BCM, a registered investment advisor. BCM and Cardinal Advisors are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.

Cardinal Advisors is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other government agency. We hope you enjoyed Finishing Well, brought to you by CardinalGuide.com. Visit CardinalGuide.com for free downloads of this show or previous shows on topics such as Social Security, Medicare, IRAs, long-term care, life insurance, investments, and taxes, as well as Han's best-selling book, The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement and the Workbook. Once again, for dozens of free resources, past shows, or to get Han's book, go to CardinalGuide.com. If you have a question, comment, or suggestion for future shows, click on the Finishing Well radio show on the website and send us a word.

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