The Medicare Annual Enrollment Period for 2023 season is almost here and that means your mailbox gets bombarded with advertisements. Every time you turn on the television a previous football player is telling about Medicare plans. It is by far the most confusing time of year for most Medicare beneficiaries.
Many beneficiaries know they need to be doing something during the Medicare Fall Open Enrollment (Oct 15-Dec 7) each year, but they are not sure what. The constant radio and television ads cause people anxiety because they wonder if they should be making a change or not.
AEP (Annual Enrollment Period) as it is referred to, is an 8-week period every fall during which Medicare beneficiaries can enroll in, change, or disenroll from their Medicare Advantage and/or Part D drug plans.
Here’s why the period exists: Part D plans and Medicare Advantage plans get to re-file their benefits with Medicare each year. Which means they get to make changes. Changes can be sometimes bad for beneficiaries and sometimes good.
This means the benefits and premiums on your plan can change, go up or often enough down. Medicare lets you have an election period each year to change your plan if you don’t like the changes to your existing coverage or if you find something that fits your needs better.
The first day you can apply for a new Part D or Advantage plan is October 15th. Your new plan will become effective January 1st, 2023.
Now, the good news is that you do not have to change your plan if you like your plan. In fact, statistics show that many beneficiaries do not make changes to their plan each year. However, you should be reviewing the upcoming plan changes every September.
Your Medicare Advantage or Part D Insurance plan provider will send you a document in September called the Annual Notice of Change. Take a few minutes to sit down and review this document. It will tell you if the premium is changing, also if any of your copays, drug formulary or pharmacy networks are changing.
The Annual Notice of Change lists the plan’s changes side-by-side from 2022 to 2023. This makes it easy to compare changes to coverage at a glace.
You do have a few choices for plan changes during the Medicare OEP.
• Do nothing and your current Medicare coverage will automatically renew in 2023
• Change from one Medicare Advantage Plan to another
• Enroll in, leave, or change your Medicare Part D drug plan
• Switch from Traditional Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan
• Switch from a Medicare Advantage plan back to Traditional Medicare
Keep in mind that Part D drug plans have no health questions. You can change to any other plan if you have either Medicare A or B and you live in the plan’s service area.
Medicare Advantage plans have only one health question about End Stage Renal Disease, only item is you must be enrolled in both A and B to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan.
Some may be wondering what a good reason would be to change your Part D plan or Medicare Advantage plan for 2023 Here are some of the few reasons to change plans during Medicare Open Enrollment.
• Your plan is dropping one of your important medications next year. Your Annual Notice of Change letter will specifically list any changes to its drug formulary for next year. The plan must disclose if they are dropping any medications. They must also tell you if a medication is moving to a more expensive tier for next year. If you take a brand name medication now that won’t be covered the next year, you may want to change during the OEP to another drug plan that will.
• Your Medicare Advantage plan is dropping your doctor from its network. Unlike Medigap plans, Medicare Advantage plans have a network of doctors. If one of your doctors is leaving the plan’s network, you can use the Medicare OEP to switch to another plan that your doctor still participates in.
• Your plan has a drastic increase in premium. Please note that the key word here is “drastic.” Inflation happens to medical insurance plans just like it does to auto insurance plans. If your auto insurance goes up $3/month next year, would you go to the hassle of changing it? Probably not. Likewise, if the only thing changing on your drug plan is a small increase in premium, you don’t have to switch. But if your drug plan goes up $20/month, you might look to see if any other plan is cost effective.
The thing here is not to make it more difficult than it is. If you are happy and nothing significant is changing, don’t feel like you must shop around just because you hear the word “Medicare” every 90 seconds.
Just review the Annual Notice of Change. See if there are changes that are being made make you want to shop around. Contact your agent for help if you do need to change.
