Which of Medicare's two paths are you on?
Medicare & Healthcare

Which of Medicare's two paths are you on?

Take-Home Notes, part one: the workshop's opening section, in print. Medicare starts with one foundation, there are five ways to build on it, and most people end up on one of two paths. Plus why your mailbox is full: hundreds of companies sell the exact same Supplement plans.

Which Medicare situation is yours?
Medicare & Healthcare

Which Medicare situation is yours?

Eighteen tricky Medicare situations on one page, sorted by what is going on in your life: still working, served, a letter in the mail, a clock running, a surprise bill, two addresses, AI, and the phone. Find yours, then send the right one to someone who needs it.

Two addresses, one plan, and the county line. What six months away does to a Medicare Advantage plan, the difference between visiting and moving, and why Original Medicare has no county line.
Medicare & Healthcare

Two addresses, one plan, and the county line. What six months away does to a Medicare Advantage plan, the difference between visiting and moving, and why Original Medicare has no county line.

Medicare Advantage is a county product. Leave the plan's service area for more than six months and the rules say the plan must drop you, with no replacement window waiting. Move for real and two doors open. Here is the regulation, the visitor exception some plans offer, what happens to a routine doc

The Annual Notice of Change, read like a spec sheet. The seven lines that matter, the two meters people confuse, and what your plan can change mid-year without asking.
Medicare & Healthcare

The Annual Notice of Change, read like a spec sheet. The seven lines that matter, the two meters people confuse, and what your plan can change mid-year without asking.

Every Advantage and drug plan follows the same government template for this letter, so I pulled the template. Here is the layout, the summary table on page two, the arithmetic for a made-up plan whose premium did not move but whose costs did, and the mid-year changes the rules allow. Deadline for th

Two letters are in the mail. One says your plan is changing for 2027. The other says your plan is going away. How to tell them apart, what happens if you do nothing, and where to bring your questions.
Medicare & Healthcare

Two letters are in the mail. One says your plan is changing for 2027. The other says your plan is going away. How to tell them apart, what happens if you do nothing, and where to bring your questions.

Two different letters are landing this month. One says your plan is changing. The other says your plan is going away. They carry different deadlines and different rights, and the most expensive mistake is treating the second one like the first. Plus the one door that only opens if you go to Original