Well, I guess I don’t need any answers to the Medicare part D question now. Mom decided it was not worth it to make a quick decision now, we will research and evaluate next year. Who would think retirement would be so complicated? My husband, on the company plan, pays exactly zero for Xarelto.
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I think it shows for us younger people, just starting the Medicare conversation that we should make these decisions and thought early on. Because as we age, making these kinds of decisions becomes harder and harder.
My mom recently went through a Medicare decision that was extremely difficult for her. I think she really has more trouble thinking through things than she did when she was younger.
It could be my mom though. But it sounds like your parents wrestle with these issues also
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That’s a good point.
When my husband (7 years older) went on Medicare, he worked with a Medicare broker who illustrated that with his various doctors / meds it made expense to go with the most expensive option. When I get there, if I am fortunate enough to not develop any new health issues, on paper the recommendation might be to go with Advantage Plan or another budget option. However there are limited opportunities to change. And to the point above, it could get harder for me to sort through it all as I get older.
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Some of the Advantage plans include drugs - so during the year – prior to next open enrollment, you may want to consult a free Medicare broker to research the best options for your dad/parents’ coverage.
Best wishes on just doing the best for one’s health during the year ahead.
Relatively speaking $6,000/year for a medication that can keep one out of the hospital and better quality of life might be considered a bargain from some.
Maybe the prescribing MD has some samples, or a way to get lower cost through a pharmaceutical option to limit out of pocket.
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@deb922 yes, that is my mom exactly. Agonizing over trivial decisions (not that this one is trivial, though), everything is such a difficult production for her. She used to be so capable, still is in some ways, but now constantly forgetting things and talking about how every tiny thing is so hard. Part of it is the stress of being a caregiver, no doubt, but it seems like it’s gotten far worse lately.
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@busdriver11 We have traditional Medicare with a supplement, so part D is a separate cost.
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Agree. Part D should be checked every year. Prescription use change, formularies change, deductibles/copays change.
Busdriver: Medicare’s comparison tool works pretty well.
Just click Part D, and enter in all of dad’s scripts and it will compare plans for you/him.
https://www.medicare.gov/plan-compare/#/questions?year=2022&lang=en
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^^ This was my mom also, as the years passed. Super capable for most of her life, but decision-making (large & small) became a real challenge later. The prevalence of this seems a decent argument for making the biggish decisions about healthcare, location, finances, etc. well before you need to…
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There’s a lot of hard-earned wisdom in the parentscaringfortheparents thread here on CC.
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yeah I do have a side hustle which I’m not throwing myself into now but will do especially in the last year of their college, when it can’t hurt their financial aid, while my wife will wait tables. It’s still not going to be enough to avoid losing the equity. Sad thing about California: state school is not cheaper than private school for people not poor, not rich.
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Thanks. My kids are applying now, Twins, one a valedictorian and the other up there. But its a small school with no AP classes on offer and no honors. They’ve done all they could.
Applications are going out. What’s done is done.
Unfortunately, and the recent lockdown might have made this worse, sleep-away school is part of the them-or-me calculus. It may be the case that I’ve drunk the koolaid and believe in that whole possibly romanticized experience. I do see how they need it.
Your perspective is a sound one and I can recognize that it could only be images dancing around my head that is keeping me from accepting it.
However, at bottom all we have are images dancing around in our head ultimately, so it’s really which images to listen to.
Eating dog food in the end might have a certain tangible-ness to it though, I admit.
With the exception of a few high endowment private schools, I don’t think that’s the case. You won’t find many privates for about $30k-$33k if you are full pay at a UC. The CSUs will be even less.
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I’m no expert on Medicare. Health care is paid for by my company (I own it so I in effect pay both employer and employee part.). It seemed like Part D was a no-brainer and Parts A/B/D were much cheaper than what I had been paying.
Today ShawWife and I have a call with SS because she is turning 65 and she is not starting to take SS now (it is optimal to wait a couple of years) and so we will have to pay the Medicare premiums out of pocket. Not sure why this requires a call but it does.
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We’re not full pay at UCs according to the npc calculator, so if we are full pay then forget it. Two kids at UC at our non-full pay is still more than half of what I take home though, and way beyond what I can manage.
On merit alone we’ve got many schools with offers at under 33k actually. But not under enough. FA offers are still awaited but so far got one school, Earlham, that offered 0 in FA.
There are well endowed schools that will cost less than UC, not a few, though I suppose it depends what “few” means, and there are many schools that come in, and have already come in, at about the same as UC, the latter bunch of which are therefore as unattainable as UC.
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She can apply and get her Medicare A card w/o any payments. Talking to them about Medicare B (sounds like you are taking that out); then you probably have your supplement covered with your employment and may have looked at Medicare D drug plans and made selection.
If she has Medicare A and B together great! They should process w/o problem.
We have to call Medicare/SS again as we still don’t have DH’s Medicare A and B card (we just Have Medicare A card which they decided to send twice), nor the billing for Medicare B (which was suppose to start Sept 1 or Oct 1); we have to get them to get going on it. DH has had no medical claims in Oct or Nov but our supplement won’t pay w/o Medicare B paying/in place. Ugh.
So we finally ‘pinned down’ our local SSA office - this lady (who we have talked to before, via my documentation) discussed with her ‘management team’ - had us on hold quite a while; she said they are talking to payment center and we will get a letter in 30 - 60 days from them. Then I had to ask “so when is Medicare B starting, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, what?” and she said for Sept 1 2021.
A bit of relief, but waiting this long - and who knows if it will come through as they say now??? Application in July for Medicare B (for Sept 1 or Oct 1 start but it was determined that we needed to take it for Sept 1, otherwise Nov 1 - which would have left DH w/o coverage for 1 month), prior Medicare A application, way too much interface with local office daily for two weeks straight in Sept - including dropping off documents twice to be scanned in by them and then delay – way too much misinformation by various people in their office, then their sending off DH’s file to the payment center Sept 28 (his file was ‘too complicated’)-- which we were suppose to hear back from them in 30 to 60 days.
The Government has the power and control on this. Yes they have to follow the rules and regulations, and yes they can back date things. But how would you like to be in our shoes? Way too much angst and gobs of personal time spent over this situation.
In this process, they also were going to start his SS, which we did not request nor want now (he is not at full SS age), so we had to file another document with them – I believe this was a 3rd trip to drop the form off to be scanned in - and we did received verification in the mail that he is not starting SS now.
My in laws had retiree health insurance through my FIL’s last employer. When FIL died last year, MIL thought she was no longer covered by that insurance & was really concerned about having to figure out Medicare. When I called HR to report his death, I was told that she could continue the insurance. It’s probably more costly than other plans for which she would qualify, but it’s familiar & easy. At 95, she gets overwhelmed by things, and a few extra dollars a year is well worth it for her peace of mind. Frankly, I am surprised by how confusing the whole Medicare system can be. The older folks get, the harder it is to make sense of annual changes and keep track of signups.
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@kelsmom I can bet the employer coverage through FIL’s company is a very good coverage plan with reasonable rate - based on the retirement circumstances from years ago. Private companies are often not having such generous options and are trimming things down - less and less employee ‘loyalty’ being rewarded at retirement. Being a federal government employee is a different story - if retiring before 65 but qualify for retirement by their years of service and age scenario - one has the option many outside of federal government do not have. I know some public school systems, which may not have the best pay scenario but have low cost health insurance before and after retirement. Some of these school systems though also do not allow one to draw SS…
Lots of varying situations in retirement!
Medicare and SSA do not make it easy to understand and often to work with them, that is for sure. They have all these requirements for insurance companies to comply with and the open enrollment or initial enrollment period, means one gets unsolicited phone calls and mail.
We get lots of paperwork with changes in costs and benefits with our Medicare supplement insurance and with D drug plan, which is expected to a certain extent - we both have the same supplement and have different drug plans. We have automatic withdrawal from our checking account.
A few days before one’s Medicare D initial enrollment window (age 65, the months after he turned 65) came up (for DH it was Oct 1), we also got very threatening automatic email from SSA about the penalty for him not having Medicare D in place yet (they had no way of knowing if DH was continuing to be covered by my employer) - we were waiting for Medicare B from SSA but we were able to sign up for the D, drug plan as we verified with the D plan we chose that his drug coverage ended Sept 30th. We had also confirmed with the drug plan we chose that it is processed on the phone almost immediately, and can’t be applied for before 1 month of the change onto the plan.
The transitioning during open enrollment periods between a traditional Medicare B supplement coverage and the Advantage plans and back and forth opportunities are very vague IMHO by SSA/Medicare information. I think if you are unsure about wanting to ever be on a supplement plan instead of Advantage, it is best to stay on supplement plan. Maybe someone on this thread has experience switching back from and Advantage plan to a traditional supplement plan and can share if it is doable.
Probably because stuff has been added on to it over the years, rather than the system being redesigned and simplified.
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I think it’s fair to say, but maybe I’m incorrect - many of the “rules,” etc. around Medicare, Medicaid, etc. are decided by Congress/lawmakers, and not the agencies that implement them.
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