The Ugly Side of Medicare - Things You Should Know

Medicare for the most part is actually really good it works very well as your health insurance pretty much for the rest of your life so as long as we set it up correctly it's terrific coverage but there are some pieces that aren't so pretty that are kind of ugly we need to understand exactly what they are so we can manage our expectations and make sure that we get it right and I'm Keith arre I'm founder of Medicare on video I've helped people across the country make the right Medicare choices I can absolutely help you as well and I'd certainly appreciate it if you allow me to help you one of the best parts about what I do is I don't get any complaints I literally get no phone calls with this didn't go right or that didn't go right so we set everybody up the way it should be from the start so that you really don't have to think about health insurance down the road everything functions exactly the way it's supposed to but right now we're going to talk about some of the ugly parts of Medicare there's not a lot but there are some and we need to be aware of I just want to jump in for a quick second and invite you to join my private Facebook group talking Medicare where you can get answers to just about any questions on Medicare and interactions with others that are also in Medicare there are no agents no sales whatsoever it's absolutely free just visit talking Medicare group.com it'll take you right there you can sign up for free easy to do enjoy the video first one that sticks out quite big to me and it doesn't affect people that are turning 65 if you're coming into Medicare right when you turn 65 this won't affect you but if you work past age 65 and you don't set up your Medicare so in other words you stay on your employer coverage and you set up Medicare later at 67 at 68 I've seen it well into the mid 80s but if you set up your Medicare after age 65 your Medicare part A start date so let's say you're going to retire in July your Medicare part A start date is going to be back dated six months and people aren't aware of that and where this makes a difference it really doesn't make a difference in your coverage because there's no cost for just about anybody for Medicare part A but where it does make a difference is if again you're at an employer and you contribute to a health savings account an HSA account a lot of people do it's a really good investment vehicle to have for medical expenses going down the road and it's pre-tax money but the rule within Medicare and I don't know why they make this rule but they do when your Medicare starts you can no longer contribute to an HSA account so you can no longer contribute into your health savings account you can still use that money going forward for many different things including Part B premiums which is pretty good thing but you can no longer contribute so what happens if you're going to join Medicare after AG 65 and your retirement date is in July your part A is going to start 6 months before so you will have needed to stop your contributions into your HSA account 6 months before your effective date and who in the world's going to know that it's not a well publicized thing most people do not know that and I can promise you it trips up a lot of people and where there would be issues is with your tax returns so at some point somehow somebody's going to recognize that you contributed into an HSA account past the time period you were allowed to do so and there would be penalties and things of that nature it just can be a mess and if you did it for you know the entire time it it can really be a mess and if you continue to contribute once you're in Medicare you know forget about the backdating it can be a mess and you'd have to refile taxes and things of that nature so just make sure we understand if you're going to join Medicare after age 65 your part A is going to be 6 months earlier than your actual start date and you need to stop your age HSA contributions prior to that another thing with the employer part of it is when you come into Medicare in order to not have a penalty on Part B so we don't want a penalty when we don't need one you have to have creditable insurance coverage which is your employer group coverage no big deal if you're still working at an employer over 20 employees then you on a group health plan at that employer that is creditable in coverage which is fine you have to get a form fill it out it's all on my website we make it easy for you to get all that done we also help with that so if you want our help just give us a call we'll walk you right through it but what some people don't understand is what is not considered creditable coverage is number one Cobra coverage and number two retire Rec coverage so retire Rec coverage likely if you're on retire Rec coverage it's probably something you're going to be on forever so you may never come into Medicare if you have retire Rec coverage but if sometime that retire coverage did stop and you came into Medicare they don't consider that to be creditable coverage so your part B will have a penalty and that penalty runs I believe it's 10% per year for each year that you did not sign up for Medicare when you should have at age 65 and you stayed on noneditable coverage so it could be 10 20 30% or more of a penalty on your part B same with Cobra now if you're on cobra that's different because Cobra doesn't last forever I've seen a rare occasion where an employer at retirement offered to pay for somebody's Cobra coverage for 6 months or a year and that's terrific however when you come into Medicare they don't consider consider it creditable so there's going to be a penalty on your Medicare Part B even though you had coverage paid for by your employer if it was Cobra coverage it does not count towards that penalty phase of Medicare Part B so important to understand that as well another rather ugly part about Medicare that people don't find out till they're really in the middle of getting everything's done is Medicare doesn't cover dental or Vision or hearing so dental vision and hearing are not parts of what Medicare covers and kind of the same as what you may have on group health insurance now they typically don't cover it either you have to get a separate policy for that and the same goes with original Medicare you have to have a separate dental vision hearing policy and you can do it in two different ways there's a Comprehensive Dental Coverage usually runs about $50 a month it usually includes vision and hearing but that's a typical regular dental plan or you can look to get a discounted dental plan which can run as little as $10 a month where it has specific dentist in your zip code and everything's already pre-negotiated where things are much less than if you went in without insurance so something to understand coming into Medicare another piece you're going to be looking at is dental vision and hearing now you'll see on a lot of Medicare Advantage certainly on the commercials they talk about dental coverage in their Medicare Advantage plan this is true it's typically preventative care so it's basic care doesn't typically cover the big stuff crowns and dentures and things of that nature that we likely might need you know in our senior year so something you're going to need to navigate through as well and we we help with all that as well so we're happy to do that if you'd like to get help you can fill out the form right on my website Medicare onv video.com and we'll send you quotes on Medicare supplement plans in your zip code and walk you right through everything put all the pieces in the right place places make sure everything gets done is the way that it should now another kind of ugly part about Medicare Medicare drug plans if you're on original Medicare you're likely going to have a Medicare drug plan and they can run really as little these days as 50 cents a month it can be not expensive to have but one kind of issue that I have with drug plans is if you don't take any medications whatsoever why would you need a drug plan you really don't need a drug plan and a lot of services out there like good RX or Mark Cuban's Pharmacy service can be pretty good discount plans for prescription drugs but with Medicare they're part D drug plans if you do not sign up right when you come into Medicare you can still get it at the end of any year during Medicare open enrollment period but here we go again there's a penalty because you didn't get it right from the beginning so these days where prices have dropped dropped significantly the the cheapest one used to be like $20 a month now it's literally it might even be free uh or as little as 50 cents a month at the very least we want to get the lowcost drug plan just to avoid the penalty but I'm never a fan of paying for insurance when we don't need insurance but in this case we need to take a look at the penalty because we don't want to all of a sudden need it 5 years from now and then that penalty can be rather steep so keep that in mind going forward now kind of a big ugly part of Medicare that a lot of people get caught by a surprise it's called Irma if you know anything about Irma it's the income adjusted rates for things like Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D drug plan and Medicare Part B and it's income adjusted it's pretty significant and if you make over a certain amount of money and I'll put the chart right up here in the video you can see the levels that it runs but it can run significantly so if you make a significant income what they would consider a significant income your Medicare Part B premium can quadruple and and you can pay much more than what the average person pays based on your income so you can see right on the chart how high it can go and based on the income that you make either filing single or filing jointly it can increase your cost significantly and a lot of people don't take that into account going into retirement how much their Medicare Part B is going to cost and you're going to pay that part B whether you're on original Medicare or whether you choose to go into a Medicare Advantage plan you're going to pay that premium and whether it's adjusted or not it's going to be exactly the same so there's no difference whatsoever so you need to understand where your monthly premium will be with Medicare Part B and backing up to the HSA if you have overtime built up a pretty nice Bank in your health savings account you can use it to pay your Medicare Part B premium so that's a really good thing because that money in your HSA account went in pre- tax and as long as you use to pay it for something that's qualified like Medicare parb premium you never get taxed on that money so that's a pretty big savings with health savings account funds so we want to make sure we use those in a correct way now the last ugly part about Medicare and it's kind of personal for me if you watch any of my videos is Medicare Advantage Medicare Advantage is out there in a big way and I would absolutely recommend staying with original Medicare it just makes your life so much easier gives you so much choice you can do whatever you want whatever your doctor wants without having to ask for permission Medicare Advantage has kind of been sold in a way that it's really got a big share of the Medicare Market it's about 50/50 you will certainly see some positive comments in the video some PE people are very happy with their Medicare Advantage plans but I hear way more unhappy stories with Medicare Advantage then I hear happy stories where it's possible to have a good experience with Medicare Advantage if you're fortunate to get the right one in the right area that has the right providers the right hospitals and doesn't really interfere too much but these days there are just multiple class action lawsuits against primarily pre-authorization Medicare Advantage companies for the most part have gone with AI artificial intelligence in a big way where when something comes in your doctor says you need this or you need that and they review it they they aren't manually reviewing it they're automatically reviewing it and a lot of times way too many times denying that coverage even though your doctor says that you need it which to to me is not the way you want to go if you're if you get into a significant medical condition last thing you want is more stress in your life you don't want to have to ask for permission to get done what you and your doctors say needs to get done so Medicare Advantage to me is not the Avenue that I would choose I would absolutely stay with original Medicare and again I don't hear any horror stories with original Medicare with the exception of the things that I just discussed like Irma or an HSA account not being able to be able to use but not for getting care not for hospitalizations not for outpatient surgeries things are done the way they're supposed to be done and they're handled without any interference so you don't have to ask for permission if it's medically necessary your doctor says you need it you agree Medicare covers it and then your supplement company doesn't play any part in the decision so when you have a supplement with original Medicare they don't play any part there's nooice Choice by them if Medicare covers it the supplement has to cover it so that's what makes my life so easy is again there's no angry people calling me saying why wasn't this covered or why are they denying this it works the way it's supposed to do so I I would do whatever I could to stay away from Medicare Advantage stay on original Medicare keep my life nice and easy going forward and again we don't want to think about this down the road so do it right the first time and again this is what we do we help with all this to put your pieces in the right places fill out your information on my website give us a phone call and right now you can download my book I'll show you how to do that my book is very helpful covers every topic in Medicare videos in the book all the links that you need now in the future make sure you download that join my Facebook group and together we'll get through this just fine so I hope you found this helpful have a fantastic day thank you for taking the time to watch my video I hope you found it very helpful couple of other things that you'll also find very helpful number one download a copy of my free book Medicare made clear I spent a lot of time and a lot of effort putting this together and it has everything that you need for Medicare now and in the future down the road I have videos in the book I have all the links that you need for things that you'll want to do within Medicare you can access it right in the book very easy to do just visit Medicare onv video.com freebook and you can download it for free you can save it on your computer you can save it on your iPad it's great resource to have again for now and in the future another thing that you'll find helpful is down the road when you come into Medicare sometimes it makes sense to do a price check on your Medicare Supplement Plan so I made it very easy to do that as well just visit Medicare price.com put in your basic information and we'll email you a quote on your same plan that you have right now A G or an N or an F whatever it may be and and likely we'll be able to save $2 to $60 a month in premium because a lot of times plans come out with better rates so if we can get a better rate for the same plan that we currently have just makes a lot of sense and then obviously take advantage of all the information on my website at Medicare onv video.com I have everything that you need right there for understanding Irma understanding employer work coverage everything that you need especially in the guides and form section you'll find right there so we update everything every year so everything should be up to dat and current with the right deductibles and premiums and things like that hope you found all this helpful have a fantastic day wait don't go anywhere there's a couple more videos right here that you'll find very helpful with your Medicare Journey so take just a minute watch the videos you can also subscribe to my channel by clicking this button and that way you'll have access to all my videos for everything that you need for Medicare hope you find it helpful have a fantastic day

Channel: Medicare on Video - HealthPlan65

Views: 101,600

Keywords: medicare advantage, medicare advantage plans, medicare explained, medigap plans, medicare advantage plans explained, medicare insurance, medicare advantage plans pros and cons, abt insurance agency, boomer benefits, medicare advantage cons, medicare advantage plans 2024, medicare advantage explained

Id: RAyEnJhc2S4

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 05 2024