2 Ways To Get Medicare and Medicare Update for 2023

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This is the Truth Network. Now, let's get started with Finishing Well. Finishing Well is a general discussion and education of the issues facing retirees. CardinalGuide.com, Cardinal Advisors, and Hans Shile, CFP, sell insurance.

This show does not offer investment products or investment advice. So today on Finishing Well, with certified financial planner Hans Shile, both two ways to get Medicare plus a 2023 update on Medicare costs. There's all sorts of neat information. You may have heard some misinformation, so we want to get you the right information. And along those concepts there is, you know, there are two ways to get Medicare.

And I love what John said in the YouTube video that they did on the subject. It's important, you know, if you remember the old CB thing that they would do is say, what's your 20? In other words, what's your location? Where are you at?

And in order to know with your Medicare, whether you've got original Medicare with a supplement or you've got Medicare advantage is a critical part to understanding what you might need to do in this upcoming time, because we're coming up on October 15th. And so here we go. Well, it just relates perfectly, doesn't it, Hans, to this idea of, you know, do you know where you are? In other words, what's your 20 when it comes to your faith, right? Do you know that you know that you're going to be in heaven?

And unfortunately, a lot of folks have misinformation. They think, well, I've done a lot of good stuff. I deserve to be in heaven.

Well, I'm sorry to say that none of us would qualify under that condition. And so we can't do enough good stuff because, you know, it's really important to know that in order to get a position of faith, we got to have Jesus' blood. It's kind of like the ultimate compass, you know, or cover, you know, that's going to be over you so that you can now be someplace when it comes to having a location in heaven. That's exactly how it works is once you're covered in his blood and you've accepted that he is the Son of God and that he did die for your sins, now when people say, well, where are you headed? We know eventually that, you know, Jesus won and we're on the winning side and we end up in heaven. So, but when it comes to this Medicare, it's one of those questions you guys a lot of times have to dig in to find out for people to know where they are, right, John?

Hans? Well, yeah, it's just like using a map. A map is no good to you. I mean, you don't need maps anymore because you just got a GPS and you just plug in where you want to go and the thing talks to you.

But back in the days with a map, the very first thing you'd have to do with the map is figure out where you are and which way is north and east and west and then where you're going and then you plan out your route. And so every year this Medicare thing comes around and that's starting tomorrow and the first thing that we got to do with anybody is we got to figure out where you are. And I guess years ago I used to just ask them questions and we would find out, you know, like, okay, so what plan do you have now? When did you go on Medicare?

When did your Part B start? When you get Medicare Advantage, a lot of people that are on Medicare Advantage that have gone on it, they don't realize what they've done. And they've left original Medicare by their own election and they've changed their Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan. And they've done this for a variety of reasons, one of which is there's typically a very low premium or a zero premium on the Medicare Advantage plan. And then most of them are aware that they have to go to certain doctors within a network on a Medicare Advantage plan. And they're also aware that they have co-pays and they're aware of a lot of things about the Medicare Advantage plan.

But many of them don't know that they really did something to get on that. They maybe thought that was the only way to get Medicare is on these Medicare Advantage plans. Or vice versa is you have people who go through this every year and they look through it, but they're still on original Medicare.

They never made this change. About half the people. And they are on original Medicare. And then they have something which appears like it's a Medicare Advantage plan, but they have a Medicare Supplement policy. And they purchased it when they first went on Medicare or a few years ago, whenever that is. And so they've got original Medicare, Parts A and B, and then they have a supplement. And that is very different than having a Medicare Advantage plan. And so our first place with this is we've got to figure out where you are right now.

What's your 10-20? I mean, that's the joke we made. Yeah. And one of the other little clues that I heard through the video that I think is really helpful is if you have a separate Plan D. In other words, you set up a drug plan for yourself, and that's a clue that you're still on original Medicare, right?

Well, it is. I mean, because if you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, if you've left original Medicare and you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, the drug program, the Part D program just comes along for the ride. You can't buy that separately, except in a few rare instances. So for the most part, if you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, you've got Part D just through that plan or the drug coverage. If you have it separately and standalone, and you pay a premium for it, it's probably a small premium, but you pay a premium for it. You also most likely pay a premium to a Medicare supplement company like UnitedHealthcare, which is AARP, or United American, or United of Omaha, Mutual of Omaha, Aetna, Cigna, somebody like that. And it normally has a letter associated with it, like Plan G or Plan F or Plan N, something like that. And you pay a premium, probably $100 a month plus, maybe $200 a month if you've had it a while, plus you pay your Part B premium in either situation.

So if you take that out of your Social Security check or you send it in because you don't have a Social Security check yet, you're paying the Part B premium whichever side of the line you're on, original Medicare and a supplement, or a Medicare Advantage. And so I've just spit out a whole bunch of stuff at you. And that's what confuses people. And so many times, people don't know where they are when they call us. And a lot of times they'll answer the question that they think they're both places.

But you're in one of these places, not both of them. And so it's almost like a puzzle where we're asking people questions. Now some people clearly know where they are. And they do this every year. And I'd like to think a lot of them are our customers. And actually during this season, we deal a lot just with our own customers because we have so many of them. And we take care of new people too that are just coming in, but not nearly as much as our own customers.

And our customers have a tendency to know where they are because we've explained it to them in the past. Right. And this time of year, it obviously is highlighted because you know, the people that are on just Original Medicare with a Medicare supplement, the annual enrollment period doesn't affect them as far as their supplement, just their Part D plan, right?

Well, that's right. I mean, if you're on Original Medicare and you're on a supplement in a separate Part D plan, and you're basically happy with it all, you don't need to do a thing during this season. And likewise, if you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, that includes a Part D, and you're basically happy with that, and you've read your mail, they have, you know, if they've sent you some big changes coming or something, you need to read that stuff, because you may be happy now.

But they can change these things year to year. And, you know, if there's something in there that just looks like it might be trouble, well, then you could change Medicare Advantage plans, you got a lot of options. But the point is, is that if you're on Original Medicare and a supplement, you don't really have to do anything. Or you can change your supplement 365 days a year, you can do as many times as you want. But the Medicare Advantage plan and the drug plans, the Part D plan can only be changed unless you qualify for some other enrollment period during this October 15th to December 7th.

Right. And the thing I'm finding, Hans, with actually a lot of friends that are my age, so, you know, we're hearing this all the time, is how the real point of confusion is for folks that get on Original Medicare and they think, well, I don't even need a drug plan, so they don't even deal with it, right? They're like, well, I don't need Part D, I don't need any, I'm not on any medication. And so they end up with fines along those lines. So all these things are things you really do have to pay attention to, right? Or you do, you absolutely do. And you need to do a little learning, or you need to get this from somebody like us. And unfortunately, most consumers get their information about Medicare and changes during the season here from ads on TV, or some sort of self-proclaimed expert that's in their circle, whether it's a friend or a relative or somebody that claims to be in the know. And they probably are in the know, but they may just be speaking about whatever their decision was, or Medicare as they understand it.

So this is a good opportunity to just kind of get schooled up on the difference. I mean, the first step in the process is that you can just get out your card and look at it. You got one of those red, white, and blue cards from Medicare. And then you also have a card from, if you're on a Medicare supplement, from the insurance company that supplements Medicare, like Mutual of Omaha or AARP, United Healthcare, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, one of those companies. And it says, typically on their Plan G or Plan F. So that's a real good indicator you're on original Medicare plus a supplement. And then you have a separate drug plan. And the separate drug plan is from somebody like WellCare, Aetna's SilverScript, or somebody like that. Now, as you were saying, as some people that don't really get informed, when they're turning 65, or whatever, they say, I don't take a lot of drugs, I'm just not going to fool with it.

And what happens to them is they can enroll now during this open enrollment period, or annual enrollment period, but they're going to pay a penalty now for the time they missed. Okay. And that's why you want to just kind of know you want to get a drug plan right when you're 65, even if you don't think you need it.

Right. And so it, you know, I did what you said, well, you know, we're here and unfortunately, we got to go to a break in a second. I just pulled out my card, and I know I'm on Medicare Advantage, but there is not a clue on this card anywhere. You know, I had my red, white, and blue Medicare card too, because I, you know, even though I'm on Medicare Advantage, I still have that. The one clue that I guess it says, it says Aetna Medicare premium plus plan, PPO, and then it says Medicare RX on the same card, right?

And so I guess that would be a clue that that's a Medicare Advantage plan, right? Yeah, let's talk about it after the break, because I'll give you some more clues to everybody listening. All right.

So pull out your cards. We'll be right back. In the meantime, you know, we want to let you know that the show is brought to you by CardinalGuide.com, and you can always go to that website and see the show notes on the video along these lines, all the worries that are associated with Medicare. It's all there at CardinalGuide.com.

We'll be right back. That's CardinalGuide.com. Welcome back to Finishing Well with Certified Financial Planner, Hans Scheidl. Today's show is two ways to get Medicare. Plus, we got some updated Medicare costs to give you for 2023.

There's been some news out there, a lot of misinformation about there. We want to get that with you. But when we left our hero, Robbie, I just pulled out my card and, you know, trying to figure out, am I on Medicare Advantage, or am I on Medicare with a supplement, which I already knew I was on Medicare Advantage, but you were going to share something else. Yeah. So your clue there is PPO, or if it didn't say PPO, it would say HMO. If you got one of those two words on your card, you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, because that's referring to the network. There's no such thing as a Medicare supplement card that has a network that has either one of those things on there. Okay. Right. Now, is there any reference to the co-pays on there? Let me look at the back. Nope.

Just a bunch of 1-800 numbers. Okay. But then the drug plan is on there. Right. And so, yeah, you're on a Medicare Advantage plan. And I know that separately because you bought it from me. But so let's talk about, like, why you want to know this information this time of year is, first of all, what I find with a lot of people is they've read the attributes of both sides of the line.

They've, you know, they've, they've read about original Medicare, they've read about Medicare Advantage plans, and they don't even, they're not even aware of the line. And so they're applying attributes of both things to the other thing. Okay.

And that's dangerous in decision making. And one of those is, you got to do something this time of the year. And that can be easily solved if you just get in touch with me and, or somebody like me, and you just talk, talk through what you have and what are my options?

What do I need to do this time of year? So that's, that's the first problem is applying attributes of the wrong side, or little parts of both to whatever you are on. Now, if you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, and you're unhappy with it, you've learned about the network, and it's just not working for you. You paying these deductibles, perhaps the extra vision, dental and hearing, and the extra benefits, you know, that you're getting with that are just not, not floating your boat.

And you just, I mean, you've just got lots of things with this. And so you want to consider a change. And you want to consider a change either a to a new Medicare Advantage plan. Or you're thinking about going back to original Medicare, and then purchasing a supplement. If that's the case, we can handle it for you.

And a lot of businesses can handle it for you. There's a danger in just responding to these ads or going to a seminar because they're generally run by a Medicare Advantage plan. So they're just going to talk to you about their Medicare Advantage plan. They don't a lot of times offer the option to go back to a supplement. So in any case, we could do either one. And your first step, if you're wanting to go back to original Medicare, would be to purchase and apply for a supplement, a Medicare supplement, because you're going to need that.

And you could do that right now. And then we want to hear back from the Medicare supplement that you're issued and approved. And once you have your hands on that, then we're going to write you a new separate drug plan.

And that new drug plan will just kick out your Medicare Advantage plan effective January 1. So it's a very easy thing. Once you know that you want to do that. And but doing it in the right order.

You got to do everything in the right order. And you really got to make these decisions where you get a list of the pluses and the minuses. And that's what we do for people is we, you know, so there's minuses leaving a Medicare Advantage plan. And there's pluses for leaving it and getting on original Medicare. And we go through the list of those for people and you know, if you get somebody talking to you about this stuff, and it's all pluses they're talking about, you know, the sirens need to be going off. Now, the other alternative is you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, and you just want to get another Medicare Advantage plan. I mean, you just want to change from like, Humana to UnitedHealthcare or something. Well, we can do that as well.

We represent most of them. And so then we're going to sit down and compare the two things and look up your doctors on the new network and look at their dental vision and hearing that they give or extras and what the premium is, what the drug plan that comes on along with it and just see. We can compare it against everything that's available in your zip code, both TPOs and HMOs.

Go ahead. I'm actually hoping to do that with Tom here shortly because, you know, they prescribed me a new medication that's outrageously expensive on my current, you know, American Advantage. I mean, my Medicare Advantage plan. So I'm hoping he can put that right. He can put that medication in the computer and tell me if there's a perhaps better plan for me to reduce the cost of that medication, right?

Absolutely can do that. You also may, you could run into the problem of now, you know, the tails wagging the dog as you're picking your Medicare Advantage plan by the drug plan. And so you end up with a better drug plan. But then you've got to make sure that the new Medicare Advantage plan, which is really the principal meal in the thing, that it's going to take care of you properly.

So the other alternative is to go back to Original Medicare, buy a supplement, and then you can pick from any prescription drug plan that's available. So he may look at that too. Right, because like you say, the most important thing is if I get bad sick, because you always say, you know, I'll get the care that I need, which is absolutely the most critical aspect of it. So that's the beauty of it is you look, you guys look at the whole picture, you know, and not just one and you don't want the tail to wag the dog.

That's a wonderful point. Well, yeah, and then you could be over on the other side, where you've got Original Medicare and the price of your supplement. This is where you were a couple years ago, where your price to your supplement had gotten up there a bit. And you had been looking at some family members that have the Medicare Advantage plan. And you said, you know, I can dump that supplement premium and dump the Part D premium if I move over there. And so, you know, we got you over there.

So and I think it's been a good ride. You also have people that are on the Original Medicare, that, you know, they want to stay on that they don't want to get into the network business, they don't mind paying the premium, but they've just, they're paying too much for their Medicare supplement, or at least they want to check. Because there's usually somebody offering that the same plan, because they all bear letters, you know, and so they're standardized. And so you can get the exact same plan in many situations for less.

We represent about 40 companies and we, you know, we run the prices and people look at it and they say, you know, for 20 bucks a month or 40 bucks a month, yeah, if I can get the same thing from a different company, go for it. Well, you can do that anytime of year. But, you know, if this has got you looking at it, just go ahead and do it now. Okay. And then, you know, we can also look at your drug plan, which you can't do anytime of year.

You can only do that during this October 15th to December 7th period. We can take your drug plan and take the drugs that you're taking, put them in the system and make a comparison against all the drug plans available for you. And we can make a recommendation if the change works. That's kind of the situation you're in now. Right.

But it's a good time of year. It's important for me to, for people to understand what they have and make good decisions. And so we've got this whole variety of options and it's just important to me to, you know, for people to understand this.

And we don't let customers say, oh, you just tell me what to do. And I don't, uh, this stuff's too confusing though. Well, I mean, we'll kind of go along with that, but we're, we're going to get you educated to a certain point. Yeah. Yeah. That's extremely helpful, which is another point of education we got to get into before we run out of time is these 20, 23 cost update, right?

Cause you know what? My wife came to me just panicky, like, oh my goodness, Medicare is going way up, way up. She was freaking out on me, but that was misinformation, right? Well, it was actually, I've never seen this before, but part B monthly cost went down and the deductible went down a little bit. I mean, it's not a huge amount. It went from the deductible, went from $233 annually to 226 annually, but that's still, I guess it's seven bucks that the government's given you that you didn't have. Um, and then the part B premium went down from 170 something to, um, sitting here, doing 170, 10 to 164 90. So it went down by a little over five bucks a month, uh, for the standard premium.

And then the people that pay extra, that Irma thing, those all went down a little bit. So this is all good news. Yeah. It's awesome stuff. And again, you can hear there's so many resources at cardinal guide.com.

It really is. You got a YouTube video on all this information, but of course, you know, your situation's different, you know, it's coming up to that time, April 15th, December 7th. And you know, why not, you know, just call them, email them. It's all there at cardinal guide.com. How to get in touch with Hans or Tom. And, you know, I know I'm going to feel a lot better after I talked to Tom about this, you know, that, that again, they look at the whole picture of, of your situation, your family's situation, you know, your wife, your kids, all those things are all taken into account in Medicare.

You know, not just that, obviously social security and a lot of other issues. It's all there at cardinal guide.com. Well, great show Hans. It's great to talk to you again this week, going into the big busy season, right? Yeah. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Finishing Well is a general discussion and education of the issues facing retirees. CardinalGuide.com, Cardinal Advisors, and Hans Shile, CFP, sell insurance.

This show does not offer investment products or investment advice. 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 Hans' bestselling 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 Hans' 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. Once again, that's cardinalguide.com, cardinalguide.com. This is the Truth Network.