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.

Is that call really from Medicare?
Medicare & Healthcare

Is that call really from Medicare?

Open Enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, and the calls come with it. Medicare says it will never call to sell you anything, and federal rules bar cold calls from plans and agents. Who is really allowed to call, what the common scams sound like, and the two sentences I say before I hang up.

Seven things no AI can know about your Medicare
Medicare & Healthcare

Seven things no AI can know about your Medicare

An engineer's list. Some Medicare facts are not public yet, some are public but only county by county or state by state, and some exist only in your own file. A good AI assistant cannot know any of them, and the difference between a good one and a dangerous one is whether it says so. Here are the se

Did you give up on AI too soon?
Medicare & Healthcare

Did you give up on AI too soon?

It makes up sources. It gets things wrong. It argues. I hear all three from people who tried an AI assistant once or twice and put it down. Each complaint was true of the tool they were holding. Here is what has changed since, with dates, what has not, and a one-minute test for each that you can run

Medicare's enrollment periods, defined with sources. Initial, General, Special, and the two different windows both called Open Enrollment, plus a short path to the one that is actually yours.
Medicare & Healthcare

Medicare's enrollment periods, defined with sources. Initial, General, Special, and the two different windows both called Open Enrollment, plus a short path to the one that is actually yours.

Medicare's website calls the fall window Open Enrollment. The regulation calls it the annual coordinated election period. The industry calls it AEP. January has an Open Enrollment of its own, and the Marketplace has another. Here is every period, its dates, who it is for, when coverage starts, and w