Medicare Made Simple Recorded Webinar

Hello, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us for today’s webinar. It’s not that complicated.

If you’ve tried to read the massive Medicare handbook and you’re still confused, you are not alone. There are a plethora of options, which can lead to a tremendous amount of confusion and even analysis paralysis. And what’s more, your health, wellness, and wallet may be at stake. So with these concerns in mind, we are cohosting today’s webinar. It’s not that complicated with chapter, a free concierge service for Mercer Advisors clients.

We take compliance very seriously at Mercer Advisors, and so want to note that this this information presented today is for educational purposes only. And if you have additional questions, I would encourage you to speak with the adviser who invited you to join today’s webinar.

My name is Laura Combs, and I’m an executive managing director at Mercer Advisors. I’m joined by Josh DeForest, executive and managing director, along with Ari Parker, who is the cofounder of our Medicare partner chapter. And today, we’re gonna be talking all things Medicare. And as many of you know, and I mentioned it’s incredibly confusing, and it is our hope today that you walk away from this call with a new sense of clarity around Medicare.

At Mercier Advisors, our goal for every client is their economic freedom so they don’t have to worry about money. And while every one of our clients would define that differently, there are a few common areas of a financial plan that are important to implement for almost everyone. And we have found that over the years of working with thousands of clients that one of the largest sources of anxiety in retirement is health care. And in an effort to really turn this risk into an opportunity, we have partnered with Chapter who is joining us today. And like I mentioned, Chapter is an independent Medicare adviser who provides unbiased holistic health care guidance for our clients. And as part of this relationship, clients have access to a dedicated team of Medicare experts who can help assist with any of your Medicare needs.

Ari Parker is one of the country’s leading Medicare experts. And if you’ve joined us for these before, you Ari is a familiar face. He has helped thousands of Americans sign up for Medicare and really breaks it into simple, bite sized pieces. And Ari’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, CNBC, MarketWatch, Huffington Post. I could go on a number of publications.

And as a graduate of Stanford Law School, he trains and leads chapter’s team of over thirty licensed Medicare advisers. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife and two dogs, and it’s my pleasure to introduce you to Ari Parker, the cofounder and head Medicare advisor of chapter. Welcome, Ari.

Thank you so much for that introduction, Laura, and it’s great to join you and Josh again to present on Medicare. Is my favorite subject and I think that you’re going to like it a lot more before we finish today’s presentation so let me start with the basics of Medicare.

You go to the next slide.

Oh, first, I should mention even before getting into the basics that there are panelists that in the if you ask your question during the presentation, our team of senior Medicare experts will be able to get back to you on the spot. So if you have a Medicare related question, feel free to ask it in the q and a, and our senior Medicare experts will will will answer your question live. So feel free to type away in the chat. We are staffing it with five of our senior Medicare experts, and they’ll answer your question during the presentation.

I love that. Alright. I I just for those of you that have maybe attended or or for Josh and myself, you all keep us very busy. I’ve already seen questions coming in to the chat.

So like Ari mentioned, please, please, if you have a question that you want answered, put it in the chat. Someone will answer it either directly back to you, or we may answer it live throughout the presentation. So absolutely, in the bottom of your screen, use that that chat feature, the q and a, and we will be answering questions live. I think the we might have answered close to two hundred questions last time, so keep us busy as we go through our time.

So, Josh, we’ll hand it to you for our agenda.

Yeah. Thanks, Laura. So, as Laura mentioned, there’s a lot of different pieces, to Medicare. There’s a lot of different decisions that people need to to make.

And what we hope that you walk away from today’s conversation is knowing a little bit more about what the key parts of Medicare are, then taking that foundation, using that to make three bite sized decisions. And what we find is that when you break it down simply, it makes, making decisions around Medicare planning much simpler. And then most importantly, once you have that foundation, what are some of the things that we can do to actually take action and move forward? So, Ari, let’s just jump right into it.

As we think about laying that foundation, there are three key parts of Medicare. Can you talk about what those are and how our, listeners should be thinking about that?

Yes. You can picture Medicare as a three legged bar stool.

There’s hospital coverage, what happens when you’re inpatient at the hospital.

There’s everything outside the hospital, which is outpatient coverage.

And then finally, there’s drug coverage. Those are the three legs to Medicare. Each of those correspond to a part. So Medicare Part a is hospital coverage. This covers you when you’re inpatient at the hospital.

What this also covers is skilled nursing facility care, hospice care, and some home health care. It’s a safety net for when you need hospital services.

And here’s the best part of Medicare Part a. As long as you or your spouse have worked for at least ten years, then there’s no charge for Medicare Part a. You’ve already paid into the system through your payroll taxes, and so there’s no charge, there’s no premium for Medicare Part A. I should note here, there is a substantial deductible, though, and it’s sixteen it’s over sixteen hundred dollars per hospital stay. I’ll get to how to cover that later on in the presentation.

Then there’s Medicare Part b. Medicare Part b is everything outside of the hospital.

So this covers almost everything that you would need, and it’s considered outpatient coverage. This includes visits to your primary doctor, visits to specialists, preventative services, including flu shots, and a wide range of other medical services.

If you need an outpatient procedure, like a knee or a hip replacement, then Medicare Part b has got you covered. Now there is a charge for Medicare Part b. Most Americans over eighty five percent pay one hundred and seventy four dollars and seventy cents per month for Medicare Part B, and there’s no family plan. If you and your spouse are both under Medicare, then you each owe that hundred and seventy four dollars and seventy cents.

If you’re a high earner, which many of our attendees are, then you’re going to pay more for Medicare Part b, and I’ll cover that a little later.

Now you might be curious about the term or if you go back one a slide for a moment, you might be curious about the term original Medicare and what original Medicare covers. Original Medicare refers to Part a and Part b. These are the twin pillars established in the mid nineteen sixties. It was one of the signature pieces of pres of president Lyndon b Johnson’s Great Society, and people absolutely love Medicare. It’s perhaps the most gov the it’s the most popular government program next to Social Security.

In fact, in the week leading up to the program start, there was a mad rush to sign up for Medicare, and over eight million Americans enrolled in just the seven days preceding the start of the program.

And a fun fact here, maybe this is only fun to me President Johnson awarded the first red, white, and blue Medicare card to a former president Harry Truman and his wife With that, we can go to the next slide, which is the most recent addition to Medicare, Medicare Part D.

Now, Medicare part d is the drug benefit, d as in drugs. And it was introduced in two thousand six under a bipartisan deal, and it’s an optional addition to your Medicare coverage.

And although enrolling in Part d is technically voluntary, there are financial consequences for not signing up when you first become eligible. And let me go over what those are. If you choose not to enroll in Part d when you start Medicare, you may face a late enrollment penalty when you eventually decide to join. The penalty is calculated based on the number of months you went without Part d or coverage at least as good as what Medicare part d would have covered.

And that premium, that additional penalty is added to your part d coverage for as long as you’re alive as for as long as you’re alive. So it’s cumulative, and it’s lifetime. So you owe it for as long as you’re signed up for part d. So that’s the reason to get it.

The other reason to get it is so that you have drug coverage. Right?

So there’s two ways to sign up for Medicare part d. I’ll cover how you can sign up for part d later in the presentation.

But for now, I just want to emphasize that part d is not something you automatically get when you start Medicare part a and part b. It’s optional, And there’s a penalty if you don’t sign up for it when you start Medicare Part a. So I just wanna bookmark that here.

And, Laura?

So, Ari, we’re gonna get into a a misconception here around, you know, income and adding income into the equation. And this is probably where the work that chapter does most closely aligns with what we do at Mercer Advisors.

So when we’re tax planning, when when Josh and I are meeting with clients, when advisors are meeting with clients, and we’re thinking about realizing maybe capital gains in the portfolio, tax loss harvesting, for example, or even doing RAS conversions.

For those, you know, ages kind of sixty three and older, it it isn’t just the tax brackets themselves that we think about. We are starting to really think about the impact that tax has on people’s Medicare premiums. So, Ari, for listeners today, can you help us understand how a person’s taxable income affects how much they pay for Medicare?

Yes. So remember when I said that most Americans owe a hundred and seventy four dollars and seventy cents per month for Medicare Part B?

Well, if you’re attending this presentation, you’re probably not like most Americans. You might be a high earner.

And high earners get charged more for Medicare in two ways. There’s two high earner taxes. And the higher amount is called an income related monthly adjustment amount. It’s short for IRMAA. That’s the acronym, IRMAA. And I I don’t know why the government chooses these acronyms, but that’s that’s the one they use here.

And the two high earner taxes are on Medicare part b, and there’s also a part d surcharge.

But I’ve got some good news here too. So how do you know if you’ll owe IRMAA? It all comes down to your tax return from two years ago. So for twenty twenty four, take a peek at your twenty twenty two tax return, or let your Mercer adviser know, and they can help you see whether IRMAA applies to you. And if you’re already planning ahead for twenty twenty five, then you would want to keep an eye on your twenty twenty three tax return.

Now let’s talk numbers. If you earned less than a hundred and three thousand dollars filing solo or two hundred and six thousand dollars filing jointly, and this is based on your modified adjusted gross income for tax year twenty twenty two, then you’re in the clear. So if you earn less than those threshold amounts, there’s no need to worry about IRF.

But if you earned more than those amounts, then it might be worth considering whether you ought to appeal. And that’s something our team here at Chapter helps Mercer with every single day. And let me give a plug here for our team. There’s no charge to use our services now or in the future.

And we really have a team of dedicated experts that partner with you to see whether it would be in your best interest to appeal your IRMAA. So what counts as a change in circumstances that would allow you to appeal? The government has outlined eight life changing events that allow you to appeal your IRMAA. The two most common are work stoppage or work reduction, and the next most common is divorce.

However, having a really good year in the stock market or selling an investment doesn’t count as a life changing event. In those cases, when you’ve had a really good year, then your IRMA will just automatically adjust downwards the following year. So just know if you sold an investment property or if you sold if if you took advantage of the rise in the stock market and had long term cap gains, that all would count towards your modified adjusted gross income. It’s not a change in your life circumstances for the purpose of a PM.

So I think that that’s really helpful. And I can tell you from personal experience, clients who have used chapter service to appeal their Medicare, and it has saved them a lot of money. So if that’s a situation that applies to you, I highly recommend that you speak with your Mercer adviser, and they can help you think through if your situation would warrant this. But, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about what Mercer or sorry. What, Medicare does cover, but help us think through a little bit more about what Medicare does not cover because I think this is really important for people to understand.

Yeah. There’s two big ticket items that original Medicare doesn’t cover. The first is that in return for paying your Part b premium to uncle Sam, you only get eighty percent medical coverage. You owe the other twenty percent out of pocket, and there’s no cap on your exposure. So let me use my mom as an example. Last summer, my mom received a knee replacement. She lives near Chicago, and it’s a forty thousand dollar procedure.

Under original Medicare, she would have owed eight thousand dollars out of pocket for her knee, plus all the pre and post op visits.

Then, I’m not joking, my mom broke her elbow in the fall, and she would have owed twenty percent for anything related to the elbow two. There’s no ceiling on the twenty percent that you owe under original Medicare.

The second big ticket item that Medicare doesn’t cover is long term care. We get a lot of questions surrounding long term care, which is also known as twenty four seven care, nursing care, or custodial care. These are all synonymous terms for long term care, which is also you might see the acronym LTC.

These services help people live independently and safely for as long as possible, and it applies when they can no longer perform the activities of daily living. That’s the technical term, such as bathing, dressing, eating oneself, or using the bathroom.

Medicare doesn’t cover long term care. There have been proposals in congress to add it as part of Medicare, but it would simply be too expensive for the nation to cover. So they haven’t made it out of committee in congress.

So if you or a loved one need nursing home care, then you will pay one hundred percent for any non covered medical or non medical service unless you purchase separate long term care insurance. And so I just wanna mention that here. And if you if if this is your first time hearing about long term care, it’s definitely a good topic to discuss with your Missouri sponsor.

Well, thanks, Ari, for for really laying the foundation of of how listeners can think about the the various parts of Medicare. With with some of that information in mind, what are the steps that a person needs to take in order to get things started?

Yes. Great question. So how to kick things off? So the first step is to sign up for original Medicare.

It’s not automatic unless you’re receiving Social Security. And let’s be honest, many of you are waiting to receive Social Security past the age of sixty five. So if you or your spouse have stopped working and you’re turning sixty five, or if you’re on a small group employer plan, that means nineteen employers or fewer, then you need to sign up for Medicare by way of turning sixty five. This is very important.

You don’t have primary insurance otherwise.

So if you go to the next slide, oh, and I’ll cover steps two and three in in in just a moment. So if you go to the first slide, which is signing up for original Medicare, When can you sign up for Medicare by turning sixty five? It’s a seven month initial enrollment period that begins three months before the month in which you turn sixty five and extends three months after the month in which you turn sixty five. So if you hit the animation, it’s a seven month cumulative initial enrollment period, but you don’t wanna wait.

Because if you wait, then the government doesn’t know that you intended to start Medicare and you don’t have primary insurance. So it’s important to stay on top of this and start the conversation three to six months before you or your spouse turn sixty five. So that way, your Medicare starts the first of the month in which you turn sixty five. So let’s take an example.

So are you too oh, go ahead. No. Go ahead.

Let’s take an example here for someone who’s turning sixty five December twenty third. Their initial enrollment period would actually open September first. And if they sign up in September, October, or November, then their Medicare will begin December first.

But if that person with a birthday near Christmas waits until December, then their Medicare won’t start until the following year. So it won’t it will be delayed by at least a month.

So I I think this is helpful for for people listening. You know, make sure that you actually do sign up. That’s step number one. And I think it it’s helpful to again, we wanna keep it not that complicated.

But we there are some nuances. And so, you know, we’re we’re talking about kinda your sixty fifth birthday month. Talk to us a little bit about the what’s the deal with the special enrollment period? People might have heard that, so wanna touch on that today as well.

Yes. So what if you’re working for a large employer or your spouse’s, you’re covered under their insurance, and now you’re past age sixty five. How do you sign up for Medicare? Well, you’re going to sign up for Medicare using a special enrollment period to start Medicare.

This is something that takes less than five minutes to accomplish online. We have simple instructions that you can follow.

Really, all it takes is establishing your online Social Security account. And then a few clicks of the button, and the government mails you your red, white, and blue card. It’s that simple. And if you need any help on doing that, our team is here to hold your hand every step of the way. So for someone or their spouse who’s past age sixty five and needs to enroll in Medicare, you’ll enroll by way of special enrollment.

But this only applies if you or your spouse work for a large group employer.

A large group employer is defined as having twenty employees or more. That’s the threshold twenty employees or more. That’s the key. So if you or your spouse work for an employer with twenty employees or more, then you are eligible to sign up for Medicare by way of a special enrollment period after you turn sixty five.

What if that doesn’t apply to you? Then you need to follow the rules to sign up for Medicare by way of turning sixty five. And if you miss that, then there’s no time like the president present to get a handle on it. Send us an email, and we will help you with the sign up instructions to see how we can get your Medicare started if you missed your initial enrollment.

So just know that this special enrollment period, if you take anything away, only applies if you or your spouse work for an employer with twenty employees or more. And we see people, unfortunately, get hit by this all the time. If you’re self employed or you own a small business, meaning nineteen employees or fewer, you can keep that insurance as secondary, but Medicare is designed to be your primary. So you have to sign up for Medicare part b when you turn sixty five.

Yeah. I think that’s a really critical step, Ari, because I’m a lot of there’s a lot of confusion around when you can keep your coverage and when you can’t. So, I think that’s a really good basis for, you know, how to sign up for original Medicare. Let’s talk a little bit about, the twenty percent that Medicare doesn’t cover. We spent a whole slide on that earlier and help people think through a little bit more. What should we do be doing about that?

Great question. That’s where chapter comes in to help Mercer clients decide how they’re going to get coverage for vets remember there’s no out of pocket ceiling under original medicare original medicare leaves you responsible for paying at least twenty percent of your medical costs Remember my mom’s knee replacement. She would have owed eight thousand dollars out of pocket.

What’s more is that original Medicare doesn’t include prescription coverage. Right? You know Part d is voluntary It also doesn’t include dental, vision, and hearing. When people realize that there are these gaps under original Medicare, they ask, what other coverage should I purchase in order to have comprehensive coverage?

And that’s where chapter comes in. And there’s no charge for using our services. We’re completely free of charge to you now and in the future.

So if you could oh, please.

Just because you mentioned it, and I know that we get this question every single time we do this webinar. You mentioned it being free to our clients, which is absolutely true. But talk to us about how you do make money because, you know, you’re not a nonprofit business.

But how how does chapter make money, and how is that important to our to our clients?

Yes. Chapter earns revenue from insurance companies, and we’re contracted with over a hundred insurance companies nationwide.

That said, it doesn’t matter which insurance company you choose. It doesn’t even matter if you choose an insurance company that’s contracted with us because we are searching every plan using our proprietary database of twenty four thousand plans nationwide. Yes that’s how many options there are for additional coverage. Over twenty four thousand, and it varies county by county depending on where you live across the United States. And all that matters to our team of advisers is that they make the single best fitting recommendation for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a plan that chapter is contracted with or not.

Yeah. I think that’s really important because I always tell people it’s really important to not do this alone. There actually isn’t a benefit to trying to do this on your own. You will pay the same amount either way, and your access to all of those plans has really helped a lot of people. So thanks for taking that that little side road here. Yeah. I’ll let you I’ll let you continue.

Yeah. And if I could just expand on that point, unfortunately, there’s no fiduciary like standard in Medicare. Our CEO has actually gone and testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee in order to fight for one, just like there is, for investments.

And we are working very hard in order to establish that type of guidance. Because to your point, the price is the same whether you go to an insurance company or work with Chapter. The difference is that you’ll never speak to that person at the insurance company again, whereas we will hold your hand every step of the way. And if there’s something wrong with your policy or there’s something that needs troubleshooting, we will white we will offer white glove service in order to help you get.

Oh, and, Ari, before you jump into this, I was just checking the q and a. We’ve had a lot of questions come in. So you guys please keep asking those questions. So as you cover option one and option two, I’m gonna ask the question that you can answer a little bit later, but talk about what it means if you wanted to switch from, let’s say, you know, you know, original Medicare to Medigap or the other way around. So why don’t you explain what these are, but talk about switching as well because that that was a question that came in in through the chat.

Yeah. It’s a great question. So it depends on what type of additional coverage you have. If you don’t have any additional coverage, then you might have an opportunity to choose additional coverage now.

And at the end of the presentation, we’re going to offer you a complimentary copy of my book. It’s not that complicated. It’ll take you less than ninety minutes to read if you fill out a survey. There’ll also be an option to speak with our team about ways that you can improve your coverage.

There’s a chance that if you haven’t selected any additional coverage, then you might be able to get it for July first. Worst case, you would just come back in the fall, which is the Medicare Open Enrollment Period, and help you choose additional coverage then. But it really depends on whether you have additional coverage or you or you haven’t selected it yet. And it also depends on what type of additional coverage, which is a great segue into the two options for additional coverage.

There are only two ways to make your Medicare comprehensive.

The first option, which applies to many of you, is to keep original Medicare and to add a Medicare Supplement plan, which is also known as Medigap. This sits on top of original Medicare. It covers the gap, the twenty percent that you would otherwise owe for your medical services. If you go this route, which I’m going to expand on in just a minute, then you would also want to purchase a standalone prescription drug plan so that you have prescription coverage and you aren’t subject to a Part D late enrollment penalty.

The second option for additional coverage is what’s called Medicare Advantage. It’s also called Part C. This is a replacement for original Medicare and you are bombarded by advertisements surrounding this. You might see Joe Namath talking about Medicare AdvantagePart c. That is a notorious at, the Joe Namath at. What this does is it replaces your original Medicare with a private plan and it imposes prior authorization and network restriction on you based on that private insurance company’s network.

It’s a replacement for original Medicare. Original Medicare allows you to see almost every doctor and institution in the United States. There are over ninety three percent of doctors nationwide accept original Medicare, even institutions like the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, and MD Anderson, which is probably the nation’s leading cancer research institute.

Medicare Advantage, though, replaces your original Medicare with a private with a private insurance company’s network of doctors. So it impose imposes limitations on your choice. That’s the downside. The upside of Medicare Advantage is that it’s lower cost than Medicare supplement. Many plans are zero dollar premium. You still owe your Part B premium, but you would have a zero dollar Medicare Advantage plan.

What’s more is these plans are designed to offer additional benefits, including prescription coverage, dental, vision, and hearing, which are gaps under original Medicare. Many of the attendees in this presentation will gravitate towards Medicare Supplement because you value seeing the doctor you want to see when you want to see.

So why Medigap?

Remember, Medigap sits on top of original Medicare and allows you maximum choice of doctor. So the first reason to choose Medigap is not having to worry whether your doctor is in or out of network. This is better than a PPO because the only question is whether your doctor is covered under original Medicare, and almost every doctor is. So the second advantage is the freedom to see any specialist you want nationwide without a referral. You don’t need to ask your primary care doctor for permission. If you want a second or third opinion, there’s no issue with it.

There’s also no bills or co pays as long as you meet your Part b annual deductible and pay your Part b and pay your premiums in a timely manner. So what we encourage people to do, we help you set up autopay so that you don’t miss a premium to your insurance company.

And finally, this type of insurance is designed to last a lifetime. Your benefits don’t change year over year. That’s why I have a saying, this is how we coach our team. Marry your Medigap.

Date your drug plan. The time to marry your Medigap is when you first sign up for Medicare. The time to date your drug plan is every fall. Every fall, we will help you choose the drug plan that’s right for you.

You’ll stick with your Medigap plan, but you’ll change your drug plan every year in order to unlock savings.

Let me go over a specific type of Medicare Supplement plan Medicare Supplement is standardized under federal law Each letter type must offer the same hospital and medical benefits. So the most comprehensive letter type for someone who recently turned sixty five is Plan g.

If you turn sixty five before twenty if you started Medicare before twenty twenty, you might have heard Plan f. Plan g is the replacement for Plan f. And what plan g covers, it’s very similar to plan f, is it means that you don’t have any restrictions on the doctors that you can see. There’s no referral required for specialist visits there’s no additional bills or co pays when you go to the doctor the only question is whether you’ve met your Part B annual deductible, which is two hundred and forty dollars for this year.

It works nationwide. So if you have a second home in a different state, if you travel to see your grandchildren, or if you just want to spend time being a winter bird, there’s no problem with that under plan G. You can go and see doctors whether you live in Arizona and want to access care in California or Florida. It works nationwide.

You can see any doctor who accepts original Medicare.

And finally, it includes eighty percent international coverage when you travel abroad. So this really helped a client who was traveling in Paris and they suffered, they actually suffered a heart attack. And they needed to be hospitalized outside of Paris for several days and they racked up thirty thousand dollars in hospitalization costs And because they had plan g, they actually received eighty percent coverage for that hospitalization.

And so this applies to someone who’s traveling outside the United States for the first sixty days of travel. So that’s limitation. It’s for the first sixty days you’re outside the United States, and it covers eighty percent of your bill up to a fifty thousand dollar lifetime limit subject to a two hundred and fifty dollar deductible. So if you have any questions about that, feel free to email in. The point here is that Plan G includes some international.

What about Medicare Advantage?

Remember medicare advantage replaces your original medicare it often includes additional benefits like dental and vision and it’s administered through a private insurance company. So it’s a substitute for original Medicare. Your benefits will actually be administered by the private insurance company of your choosing rather than Uncle Sam, and this sets restrictions on the doctors that you can see. Now if you don’t have many health needs, Medicare Advantage might work for you, especially if you’re very cost conscious, but you want to be aware of the long term consequences.

Because in forty six states, you only have a one time opportunity to purchase Medicare Supplement. And if you’re outside that six month window when you start Medicare, then you have to answer questions about your health history. So if your health changes, which I’ll cover later on in the presentation, then you might be locked into that Medicare Advantage Plan unless you move to one of the four states where you have access to choosing a Medicare Supplement.

Otherwise, you have to answer questions about your health history unless you qualify for a guaranteed issue rate, which is few and far between.

Ari, the questions are just coming in right now. So I definitely think we struck a chord with with some people thinking through their Medicare decisions.

We are approaching about a hundred questions that are being answered behind the scenes, and there’s a lot of questions, I will say, just for our listeners, that are very specific based on your circumstance and and kind of your life, events. So I wanna highlight, and we’ll have this opportunity at the end, but really highlight the opportunity to work with your adviser at Mercer Advisors to connect you with with chapter. We’ll have an to do that as well because some of these questions are so specific to to your circumstances. And so we wanna make sure that that the, chapter team is really able to answer those in the best manner. So okay. We’re in our third decision here of Medicare’s three decision steps, Ari. So, really, this next piece, you’ve simplified, I think, hopefully, for people that they need to sign up, you know, and given them a little bit of overview around the different types of plans.

So I wanna just as we kinda move into this third piece, now that we have this this knowledge, this base for Medicare from a decision standpoint, What do we need to do to take action? What what do listeners need to do today to start taking action?

Well, first, you need to speak with your Mercer adviser and let them know that you’d like to discuss your Medicare with the chapter team. What you’ll do in that one on one consultation over Zoom is you’ll meet with one of our senior Medicare experts and go over the three p’s, which I write about in the short book that we’re going to offer as a survey, if you fill out the survey at the end of the presentation.

And the three P’s are your providers. Who are your doctors? What doctors do you see? What doctors would you want to see if you developed a chronic condition?

The second P: your prescriptions. And what matters here is not just the medication that you take, but also the dosage, frequency, and pharmacy that you like to go to. And then the final P is probably the most important. What are your priorities?

What’s important to you? If you have a second home, or you’re visiting your grandchildren, or you’re planning to be a snowbird, these are all things that you want to share with your advisor so that they can help you decide between Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage, and then narrow down to the single best fitting plan for you.

You should do this every year. Our commitment to you is ongoing. It is not one and done. Your advisor will be a wealth of knowledge and a resource for you, and they are also supported by our member advocate team who can help you get to the bottom of any issue that you’re having with a carrier or with your prescription plan.

What many people don’t realize remember, marry your Medigap, date your drug plan? What many people don’t realize is that you can change your drug plan or your Medicare Advantage plan every fall during the Medicare open enrollment period. That’s why you see so many advertisements in September, October, November, and early December. That window is from October fifteenth to December seventh.

So even if you’re already on Medicare, write something in your calendar to review your coverage with the chapter team because what’s changing every year, if you’re on a prescription plan or a Medicare Advantage plan, are the network for that plan. Right, the network of doctors changes for Medicare Advantage. What’s also changing are the costs and co pays associated with that plan, and there’s also been recent legislative changes to Medicare Part D, which I’m going to cover in the q and a because I see a lot of questions surrounding it. Just know October fifteenth to December seventh, if you’re already on Medicare, is the time when you can optimize your coverage for the upcoming year.

Now you might not need to wait. If you haven’t selected additional coverage or there’s some factor about your plan that you’re extremely dissatisfied with, then we might be able to help you now for a plan that would start July first even if you’ve already been on a plan for the first first part.

Excellent. Alright. Thank you very much. This was, a great presentation. We’re gonna move into a section on q and a.

We actually received over a hundred questions in advance, and so this was a kinda curated shortlist of that. And then we’ll actually look to the q and a that’s live towards the end here. But, if you do have questions and you want to set up further time to talk with chapter, here is the email. It’s mercer medicare at ask chapter dot com.

And I encourage you to reach out to them. You can also go to mercer advisers dot com. You can, schedule a consultation directly with chapter there. But always, as Laura mentioned earlier, your advisor at Mercer wants to help you with these questions. And so really that would be the first place to start is reach out to your adviser, bring this up in the next meeting that you have with them, and let’s, help answer your Medicare questions, as Laura mentioned, that are really gonna be unique to your situation.

So, this comes up a lot, Ari. Someone has a preexisting condition. We think about this a lot, especially as it relates to health insurance pre Medicare. Help us think through, you know, what are preexisting conditions within the context of Medicare and especially the supplemental plans?

Great question. So there’s no preexisting conditions to sign up for original Medicare.

But if you want to choose an additional type of coverage, then if you wait to sign up for Medigap, if you wait more than six months after you sign up for Medicare and you wait to sign up for that additional coverage, then in forty six states, you actually have missed your one time opportunity to sign up for Medigap unless you have another guaranteed issue, right, that applies. Many people are super surprised to learn this.

And even something like take like being diabetic and taking medication for hypertension, for high blood pressure, would be considered a pre existing condition. And it could be a barrier towards you getting a Plan G.

So the forty six there are forty six states where you have a one time opportunity to sign up for plan for Medigap when you first start Medicare, and it’s a six month right. If you’re past that six month window, then you may have to answer health question health questions.

What are the four states that are the exception? They’re all along the northern Atlantic seaboard. They are New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine. So if you live in one of those states, then you can sign up for a Medicare Supplement anytime.

If you’re not in one of those states though, then please fill out the survey at the end of the presentation because if you’re like, wow. I didn’t know about Medicare supplement. That sounds really appealing to me. Then it there might be a chance that we could help you.

We could see if a guaranteed issue, right, might apply to your situation even if you have a preexisting condition. If you’re perfectly healthy, then you should also be able to answer the carrier’s health history questions. Those questions vary carrier by carrier, and we’re intimately familiar with which conditions a carrier might approve and which ones might be declinable for a different.

I think that’s an important note, Ari, because, you know, when you think about what coverage is right for you, you covered this earlier on the three p’s.

You have to ask a little bit of invasive questions. Right? You have to have a really detailed understanding of what you’re actually trying to solve for in order to get the best outcome. I think that’s important as people are getting ready to have a conversation with the folks at Chapters.

You really wanna have the the the information that we talked about earlier at hand so that it informs the conversations. They can help you really quickly with that information. I know for a fact that the group there is very fast in being able to give you and kinda point you in the right direction as to what options are best for your individual situation. So, Laura, I’ll kick it over to you.

Sure. Sure. Well, Ari, I’m glad that you answered the four states that are, that were excluded in that because that is a question that we always see on these webinars. So thank you for for clearing that up.

Another question that I’ve actually been seeing in the chat quite a bit is is around Part d, and this tends to be a big one. There tends to be a lot of information out there about changes or potential changes to Medicare part d. What’s going on, Ari? Answer answer this for our listeners today.

Yes. There has been a once in a generation change to Medicare part d. It actually started January first twenty twenty four. And this is why it’s so important to review your drug plan every year because it was such a big change and many people are surprised that a medication they were paying a thousand dollars a month a month for is actually capped now. So for the first time, there was the establishment of a maximum out of pocket on Medicare Part D. For this year, the maximum out of pocket is approximately three thousand three hundred and thirty three dollars and more good news is on the way. For next year, the maximum out of pocket will actually go down to two thousand dollars and the donut hole is being eliminated.

So it’s it’s a huge change to Medicare Part D and all the more reason, even if you’re already on a Medicare plan, to review your drug coverage for the upcoming year. Because what many people don’t realize is that this is a math problem. There’s a single best fitting plan for you.

And using our proprietary database, we can find the one that’ll provide the best coverage at the lowest cost.

I think before we even move on from there, just one takeaway for everyone on this call is that there are changes coming. And so really having a review, even like you said, Ari, if you’ve been on Medicare for a number of years, just going through that process, are there any tweaks? Are there any changes in light of this massive change that would really help that math problem and help it be more beneficial for for those individuals and family? So thanks for walking through that.

Yeah. So we get this question a lot. You know, I’m past age sixty five. I think I wanna keep working. You talked about this a little bit earlier, but specifically as it relates to Part b, you know, if they’re a part of those, you know, maybe a large employer plan, do they need to enroll in Medicare Part b?

Not if you or your spouse work for a large group employer, which is defined as twenty employees or more. But what many people are surprised to learn is that Medicare can be more comprehensive than your work provided insurance and lower cost, especially if you don’t owe IRMAA. So it’s important to do an apples to apples comparison between what you would receive if you were to start Medicare and what and and what you and the cost of deferring, cost of delaying sign care. And that’s something we do every single day. We’ll do a point by point comparison of your employer coverage or your spouse’s as compared to what you would receive if you were to start Medicare and tell you the bottom line as to what you might save or whether it might be a better value for you to remain on your work until you return.

Excellent. So I’m gonna I’m gonna put this up right now because we talked earlier about, the ability to get a free copy, Ari, of your book. So if you want to, you know, pull out your cell phone, look at this QR code, and, you know, you can fill out the survey that Ari talked about. I will tell you that I’ve got copies of the book that are here in our conference room, in our office, and they they go like hotcakes. I have to email, Ari and his team all the time asking for more because people really enjoy the book. Not just saying that because he’s here. It’s actually really informative and a really simple way of thinking about Medicare.

But we have a couple more minutes and I do wanna make sure we answer this one more question. So, you mentioned, health savings plans or health savings accounts rather. Talk about what people should be thinking about as it relates to health savings accounts when they’re also thinking about Medicare at the same time?

Yeah. So for context here, health saving health savings accounts are amazing. I contribute to one.

In order to contribute to a health savings account, you need to be on a high deductible health plan. It’ll say right on your card if you’re on a high deductible health plan. It’ll actually state on your card or you could email your the benefit coordinator at your employer. So it’s easy to figure out whether you’re eligible for an HSA. And if you are, I encourage you to take advantage of it. But here’s the thing, you can’t start any part of Medicare and continue actively contributing to a Health Savings Account.

So if you are on an HSA and you want to continue on it, then do not take any part of Medicare.

And there’s a very technical rule here about when you need to discontinue your HSA before starting Medicare. So please, please, please reach out to your Mercer adviser at least six months before you know that you or your spouse are going to retire, so we can help you stop contribution contributions to your HSA account and make sure that you don’t violate the rule and make a timely transition to Medicare. So that way there’s no gap in your coverage, and you’re not without health insurance. And you also don’t violate that rule and need to refile your taxes.

Thanks for going through that, Ari. I think, before we wrap up, there’s a few other questions that we may wanna just reiterate, just some of the answers. I’ve I the team has answered over a hundred and twenty five questions. So you this has been amazing to get these answers live. A few common themes, if you can just highlight again for the listeners, the process of getting connected with chapter is obviously Josh has highlighted, I’ve highlighted to reach out to your adviser at Mercer Advisors. We can make that introduction.

Can you walk us through or walk the listeners through once they once we schedule a call, what’s that time frame to get connected with a chapter adviser? What does that process look like, just from a timing perspective?

We have same day availability. We have a dedicated team of Medicare advisors who triage our partnership with Mercer. And you will get a one on one Zoom consultation. It’s forty five minutes.

And they will answer any questions that you have. Or if you prefer, we’d be happy to connect by phone. And you will speak with one of our senior Medicare experts. And they will go through your three P’s: your providers, your prescriptions, and your priorities to figure out the single best fitting coverage for you or just to do an apples to apples comparison with your work coverage and let you know that you’re in good shape and there’s no just let us know when your retirement date is, and then we’ll reach out at the at that time to help you transition to Medicare so you don’t experience a gap.

I think that’s great. I love hearing that from you, Ari, because I’ve seen and I’ve been able to sit with with clients on those calls. It is same day availability. So, you’re probably getting a lot of emails right now from the from the team for our listeners who are joining today to get those calls scheduled.

But, again, I’ve I’ve been able to walk through that process, and I think just the power of having the understanding around Medicare, being able to have an expert who is an advocate for you, who’s doing and sitting alongside of you to for what is in your best interest, to me, is is really at the core of who chapter is and is at the core of who Mercer Advisors is. So, just wanna thank you, Ari, and the entire chapter team. Thank you, Josh, as well for joining us today. We’ve covered a lot of information, and I’m sure you all have some notes in front of you.

You’ve learned something new. But what I wanna leave you with is is like Ari said, it’s not that complicated, and we are here to make Medicare simple.

And this webinar, this recording has been recorded, and it’s gonna be sent out as follow-up. And so if you have questions or you wanna go through something again, we’re happy to send that out. And like Josh mentioned and Ari has mentioned as well as a thank you for joining us today, we do have that copy of the digital book for for Ari. So, again, like Josh said, take out that phone, scan the QR code.

If you need help with that, if you’re not able to get the QR code, just let us know. We’d be happy to get you connected on that. But as we’ve discussed, this this process is the enrollment process can be difficult, can be challenging, and really comparing connecting more with chapter, please reach out to your adviser at Mercer to schedule a time. Chapter’s team is gonna be able to get connected with you very quickly, answer any questions that you have on coverage, and really help you improve your overall financial picture.

So on behalf of Mercer Advisors and Chapter, thank you so much for joining the webinar. We hope you have a wonderful day.