Important News Regarding Changes to Medicare

medicaredotgovThe new year will bring changes to Medicare.  Click here to see what Medicare will cost in 2017.

Also, if you recently became eligible for Medicare, but thought it would be less expensive to keep your Marketplace coverage because you get financial assistance to pay for your Marketplace coverage, then the rest of this message is for you. 

When you became eligible for Medicare Part A (the hospital portion of Medicare that is usually premium-free), you also became ineligible for Marketplace financial assistance. So that means you will be on the hook for the full price of the Marketplace plan. This also means that you probably missed the open enrollment period for Medicare Part B (the other part of Medicare coverage that has a premium). And, it means that if you do try to get Medicare Part B now, you will pay a late enrollment penalty for the rest of your life.  But . . .

For a limited time, you can apply for “equitable relief” that will give you a Special Enrollment Period to enroll in Part B. It also means that they won’t apply a late enrollment penalty, but you must apply by MARCH 31, 2017!

Some of you in this situation may have been notified of this program by mail. But it you weren’t notified, or lost the notice, or even feel you received misinformation about qualifying for financial assistance, you should contact the Social Security Administration (800-772-1213) to apply for the “equitable relief.”

Your application should include:

  • Any information or documentation you have on how you learned that the financial assistance would not apply and/or why you thought you could continue financial assistance.
  • Any letters (including the notice mentioned above), emails, notes from conversations
  • Or any other relevant information

And more good news – you don’t need to show that your confusion was caused by any particular source to qualify for this relief. You can just be confused.  We know health insurance is confusing!

To learn more about Making Sense of the Medicare Mazewatch our recorded webinar.

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