Marry Your Medigap, Date Your Part D

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Hello, everyone. Thanks so much for joining. The webinar will begin shortly.

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining Mercer Advisors for today’s webinar.

Mary your Medigap, date your part d. My name is Laura Holmes. And I am a Managing director at Mercer Advisors, and it is an absolute honor and privilege to be with you today.

Have you maybe recently enrolled in Medicare, and maybe that’s you today? And if you’re confused about some of the options, and supplemental types of coverage, you are not alone, and you are in the right place today. After enrolling in those original Medicare Part a and b, It’s now time to think about and choose your supplemental coverage plan. And today, we are gonna be going over the general differences that will help you understand how these different types of plans can fit with your overall retirement plan.

And at Mercer Advisors, our mission is to enhance our client’s financial well-being and to promote holistic wellness. In line with these objectives, we have teamed up teamed up with chapter who is with us today.

Chapter is a Medicare advisor specializing in unbiased comprehensive health care guidance. For our clients aged sixty five and above. And through their partnership, clients gain access to a dedicated team of Medicare experts to really assess their needs and ultimately select the right coverage.

And with over twenty four thousand Medicare options to consider, This is a big number. So working with chapter really helps to simplify the process for our clients and really helps to make sure that we are able to join and partner with you on that intersection of health and wealth.

And today, we’re gonna be covering a number of things, but The purpose of today is to be educational in nature. And so please think about as we do take compliance seriously to really focus on making sure that this is intended for educational and informational purposes, o only.

Joining me today is Josh De Forest, Managing Director at Mercer. Josh, is a chartered financial analyst and a certified financial planner. He’s a member of Mercer’s Investment Committee and Senior Leadership team, when he’s not helping people with their financial lives and financial plans, you can probably find him keeping up with his family, his three young boys, and doing something outdoors in nature. Also joining me is Ari Parker.

If you’ve been on any of our webinars before, Ari is a familiar face But if you’re joining us today for the first time, Ari is one of the country’s leading Medicare experts. He has helped thousands of Americans sign up for Medicare and really by breaking it into simple bite sized pieces. Ari’s work has been featured in major publications, like the New York Times, Forbes, CNBC, MarketWatch, the list goes on, and Ari trains and leads the experts and team members of over thirty licensed Medicare advisors at chapter, some of whom are with us today. And you’ll see we’ve got a team of individuals joining us today that will really be in the background here to at answer your questions.

And I love these events because In the audience, you listeners keep us busy, and so we have the experts on the on the call today on the webinar to be able to answer your questions live. So please use that Q and A feature to submit your questions, because again, we’ve got the amazing team here that’ll be answering these directly back to you, or we’ll also be taking these live throughout the webinar. So if you have the burning question, put it in early and often so that we can make we are addressing what’s important to you throughout our time today. So let’s get into it.

We have four key topics for today’s agenda. And we’re gonna really be thinking through these items and thinking about how do you go about answering your Medicare coverages. The first thing we’re gonna be covering is really making sure that we’ve got Medicare one zero one. So Ari’s gonna provide a recap on where we are.

And be able to give you some ideas around what where we are. Second piece we’re gonna really look at is choosing either Medigap or Advantage.

Bad news, you can’t have both. So we gotta choose one or the other. Third thing we’re gonna do is review your coverage, talk through what what’s important about that. And then I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the concept of a master class.

I personally love master classes. It’s a great way to become really educated on a specific topic. And it is our hope by the end of today that you have a Medicare master class in this high earner component. We get a lot of questions around taxes and Irma.

We’re headed into the end of end of the year. So it is our hope that you walk away with a master class on high earner Medicare topics.

If you’re joining us for the first time, just wanted to provide a recap. This is the third part in our series around Medicare.

If you are interested in learning more about previous webinars that we’ve presented on, is not that complicated. Was our first session that we did almost a year ago today. This is a really great overview of how to make Medicare simple. And then the second piece is seven Medicare misconceptions. Really walking through those seven myths about Medicare.

If you have a smartphone, like many of us do, you can pick up your smartphone open your camera, scan those QR codes, and that will take you directly to those links so you can save and watch those later. If you want to go back, or again, if you wanna educate yourself more around Medicare.

So, again, just making giving you that overview.

So let’s jump into it today. What I wanna think about is in the in the past webinars that I just mentioned, we’ve really given a more detailed view of the key components of Medicare. So, Ari, I’m gonna invite you to join us in, can you give listeners today a refresher as we kick things off?

Absolutely. And thank you so much for inviting the chapter team to be with you again. And I would encourage anyone who’s new to Medicare or is a couple years away from starting Medicare to review the presentations that that we’ve previously given with Mercer because they’ll be very helpful to you.

There’s no interruption, so please ask away in the Q and A. We have experts that are here to answer your questions. They’re also several of our senior advisors, and you might work with them if you schedule a one on one personal consultation with chapter. So thank you so much for the chapter team members helping out in the Q and A. Now the basic components of Medicare picture it as a three legged stool. There are three parts to get comprehensive coverage.

The first part is hospital coverage. That’s Medicare Part a. This covers you when you’re inpatient at the hospital. It means you have a wristband you don’t have a wristband at the hospital, you might be being held for observation, and Medicare doesn’t cover observation. So it’s important to have a wristband that means you’re inpatient.

Medicare Part a also covers you at an inpatient mental health care facility, a skilled nursing facility, home health care, and hospice care. Then there’s the second leg of the stool. Medicare part b. This is everything outside the hospital.

This is also called outpatient coverage or medical coverage. Its visits to the doctor, visits to specialists. It even covers lab work, X rays, MRI CT scans. I could keep going.

Annulance Services durable medical equipment is covered under Medicare Part b.

You’re probably wondering before I get to the final leg of the stool, Ari, Part a and part b sound great. How are they paid for? Well, part a is is paid through your federal payroll tax. If you or your spouse have paid ten years, of federal payroll tax, then you have premium free part a.

There’s no charge for part a. There is a deductible It’s sixteen hundred dollars per hospitalization, but that is a deductible. It’s not a charge for part a. Then there’s part b.

Part b has a monthly charge. Most Americans pay roughly a hundred and sixty five dollars per month for this year. And if you’re a high earner, which I’ll get to at the end of the presentation, then you pay more for Medicare part b.

What’s the final leg of the stool? The final leg of the stool on the next slide?

Oh, pardon. There are two things that I wanna get to that Medicare does not cover first.

One item that Medicare doesn’t cover is that it only gives you eighty percent coinsurance. You owe the other twenty percent out of pocket and sky’s the limit on that amount. For example, my mom had a knee replacement over the summer. It’s a forty thousand dollar procedure in the Chicago land area.

Had she not had some type of additional coverage, she would have owed eight thousand dollars out of pocket. Because Medicare covers eighty percent, you owe the other twenty percent out of pocket. She then broke her elbow last month. I’m not making this up.

She’s bionic at this point, and she would have owed twenty percent for the elbow too. The second big ticket item that Medicare doesn’t cover is long term care. Long term care is defined by the activities of daily living. Eating, bathing, dressing oneself, even cognitive decline is covered under long term care.

It’s also known as around the clock care, custodial care, twenty four seven care, nursing care. Medicare has no coverage for any of those items. So if you have questions about long term care, It’s a great opportunity to reach out to your Mercer Financial Planner and work with them on what’s the best way forward to get coverage for long term care.

Alright. The final leg of the stool, drug coverage, this is oftentimes overlooked. The reason why is because you get part a and part b directly from the government. But part d, you purchased through a private insurance company.

Part d is drug coverage, d as in drugs, and it’s coverage for your prescriptions.

There are two reasons to get it even if you don’t take any prescriptions at all. The first so that you have coverage for prescriptions if some are added throughout the year. And the second is that there’s a lifetime late enrollment penalty if you don’t sign up for it when you’re first eligible. So it’s really important to have drug coverage even if you don’t take any prescriptions.

The only exception here would be if you’re a retired service member, If you served our country in some other capacity and have access to the VA, or if you have credible coverage through yours or your spouse’s work, through yours or your spouse’s work coverage. So those would be the only exceptions where it’s okay to delay getting a standalone Part d plan. How do you get Part D? Well, one way is through a standalone prescription drug plan, and the other way is as part of a Medicare Advantage prescription drug plan.

Either of those comes from a private insurance company. So really important here. You don’t get part d from the government. You get part d through a private insurance company.

Alright. That was a great overview. So thank you. And for people who want to dive a little bit deeper into those topics, Laura earlier referenced, some of the previous conversations that we’ve had with Ari about this. So if you wanna dive deeper, please, you know, go back and look at that. It’s on our insight page, but what’s amazing to see is some of the questions that are coming in and knowing that we’re gonna get to a lot of them specifically later around, you know, supplemental coverage and Medicare Advantage, but I wanna kinda stay on this topic of Part deed for a second because we are getting a lot of questions these days about the changes that are coming with part d. And I’d love to have you kinda walk through what’s gonna be different, what are some of the things that are changing, and most importantly, what does it mean for our clients who are considering their part d coverage?

Josh, this is such a newsworthy topic. So we’ve heard about Medicare drug price negotiations in the news. That’s several years away, and there’s ongoing litigation between the insurance companies and Medicare over whether those rules will actually go into effect. We don’t have a crystal ball, We don’t know whether the drug price negotiations will actually happen and produce savings for seniors, but something that we do know is going into effect on Medicare Part D, is a once in a generation change. For the very first time, for twenty twenty four, there’s going to be a maximum out of pocket cap on your drug costs. As you can see in this chart, it’s going to be roughly three thousand three hundred and thirty three dollars. Here’s the backstory.

For the first fifteen plus years of Medicare Part D, there was no maximum out of pocket. Seniors who were on expensive prescriptions, paid six thousand or seven thousand dollars a year for their drugs. That all changes for the upcoming year. For twenty twenty four, There’s a maximum out of pocket.

It’s roughly thirty three hundred dollars. There’s more good news on the way in twenty twenty five. That amount goes down to two thousand dollars. So if you’ve been taking expensive prescriptions, it’s all the more reason to review your drug coverage for the upcoming year to make sure that you take advantage of the legislative changes.

That are certainly going into effect.

Yeah. That’s a great reminder, Ari, around all of the legislative changes that are coming. So thinking about, you know, everything that Medicare I mean, Medicare covers a good chunk of expenses.

But for many listeners today, and and even clients that I work with, there’s a lot of time and energy that goes into, you know, covering what Medicare does not cover Can you walk through for listeners today some of the important aspects of of what to consider?

Absolutely. And it’s such a good point. Because people think that if they have the red, white, and blue card, they have comprehensive coverage. You don’t.

You know that you only have eighty twenty coinsurance with Medicare. You don’t you’re out of pocket on the other twenty percent. What’s more is you don’t have prescription drug coverage and you don’t have other benefits that might be important to you. Like dental, vision, and hearing.

So the takeaway from this part of the presentation is that even if you’ve applied to get Medicare, That’s just part a and part b. It’s great that you’ve started the process, but now it’s time to think about how to get comprehensive coverage because part a and part b alone is not comprehensive.

How do we go through? Oh, go ahead. No. I think that’s great. And I think if you just kind of I think that leaves us to the next piece, which is really those three piece.

Just I I you and I have talked about this a lot. So if you can walk through for listeners just those three ps. I think it’ll be super helpful to give p people a picture of what that is.

Yeah. And this is the framework we use when meeting with mercer clients one on one. We go through their three ps. This is the framework we use to find the right plan for you.

First, we figure out what plan type are you going to choose, Medigap or Medicare Advantage, and then we drill down to the specific plan for you. So what do we look at? The first thing your providers, who are the doctors you see? What networks or institutions do you want to go to?

For example, if you have a cancer diagnosed would you want to travel to the nation’s leading cancer research institute, which is probably MD Anderson. Would you want to go to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale? Those two institutions only work with Medigap. They only work with original Medicare.

They will not accept a Medicare Advantage Plan. Same thing goes with the Cleveland Clinic, So it’s really important or sloan kettering for that matter. So if you have an institution that you know that you want to work with, it’s really important to Tell your advisor so it’s part of the conversation about what plan is right for you. So the first p is providers.

The second p Your prescriptions, what drugs do you take? Are they brand name or are they generic?

Is there a local pharmacy do you like to go to or do you go to a national chain? And is mail order suitable for you. If so, there might be savings for you. We look at your prescriptions and find you the lowest costing coverage.

The final p is your priorities.

What’s important to you? Do your grandchildren live out of state? Do you like to winter somewhere a little warmer? All of that functions in finding the right plan for you and which plan type to choose, which I’ll cover in just a moment.

So there are two ways to achieve comprehensive coverage. Option one is to keep original Medicare, and add a Medicare supplement, which is also known as Medigap. And I really like the term Medigap, so that’s how I’m going to refer to it the rest of the presentation. What Medigap does is it covers the twenty percent you would otherwise owe out of pocket and each plan letter type standardized under federal law, and I’m going to give an example of one in just a moment. If you go this route, you marry your Medigap, and date your drug plan. Every year, we help you review your standalone prescription drug plan typically costs two to three fancy a coffee and it’s well worth it in order to avoid the lifetime penalty.

Option two is a Medicare Advantage Plan, This is a replacement for original Medicare. It combines the benefits of part a and part b, and it establishes a maximum out of pocket.

But it’s managed care. So what people like about these plans is that they cost less than Medigap, but they’re less flexible, and they’re subject to prior authorization. So this works similar to many people’s work provided coverage, and it comes with prescriptions bundled in usually.

But there are limitations. And if you have a specific set of doctors that you would want to see, if your health changed, then peace of mind would probably gravitate towards Medigap.

I think that’s great. And you’ve talked with us a little bit about some of these important considerations.

Can you talk a little bit more about why so many people end up deciding on original Medicare and the Medigap policy. I’m seeing a lot already in the Q and A specifically around PlanG, and that’s something I know, you know, we see that Medigap and specifically plan g. So can you talk a little bit about that for us, Ari? Oh my gosh.

The audience is a slide ahead of us. I’m about to talk about plan g in one slide. I promise you. Let’s just go over the reasons people choose Medigap first.

For the the the primary reason is they don’t want to worry about whether their doctor is a network or not. I can’t stress this enough. Original Medicare is networkless. It’s better than an HMO or a PPO. You can go to any doctor nationwide, who accepts Medicare, and you have the freedom to travel about the country. It’s like a Southwest commercial.

There’s no bills or co pays. So As long as you’ve met your Part b annual deductible, for example, which is two hundred and twenty six dollars, then on a Plan g, you wouldn’t see any Medicare approved. Expense thereafter, so there’s cost certainty.

And then the final thing is it’s designed to last a lifetime. It’s guaranteed renewable as long as you keep paying your premiums. That’s why you marry it.

On the next slide, what is plan g? Plan g is a specific letter type. It is the replacement for plan f. So it used to be that plan f was the most comprehensive Medigap plan, but then Congress put a sunset on plan f.

And the most comprehensive plan became plan g for anyone who started Medicare after January first twenty twenty. So if you recently turned sixty five or you recently started Medicare, this is the most comprehensive option for you. It’s the Cadillac of Medigap plans. What does a plan g do?

First, there’s no network restrictions. You can go to any doctor who accepts original Medicare.

Second, you don’t need to ask your primary care doctor for permission. You don’t even need a primary care doctor. If you want to go and see a specialist, you can go and see them without a referral.

There’s no additional bills or co pays as long as you paid your premium and you’ve met your part b annual deductible, which is two hundred and twenty six dollars for this year. Compare that to Mercer’s coverage or my coverage here at chapter. Our deductible is way higher than that. It’s thousands of dollars. I can’t wait to start Medicare and have a much lower deductible.

Finally, with plan g, there’s eighty percent international coverage. So it actually goes beyond what original Medicare does. This actually really helped a client who was traveling in Paris over the summer. They had a multi week hospital stay because of a heart condition and they racked up thirty thousand dollars in hospital costs. Their plan g covered twenty four thousand dollars. There was a question in the q and a From someone who asked about the difference between a plan f and a plan g, the only difference is the two hundred and twenty six dollar part b deductible. If your cost of insurance is more than that amount with plan f, then it would be well worth your while to schedule a one on one consultation to see if you could save money by moving to plan g, plan g, because there’s only one difference between the two.

Alright. I think that’s a a great, summary. We’ve kind of talked about this in the past as being like the alphabet soup. It’s nice to kind of condense that alphabet soup down to just maybe one letters.

So I think that’s a really helpful, overview. Now what I always find interesting about this is that when you watch TV at night, you don’t hear about PlanG. You hear a lot about Medicare Advantage. And so I’d love for you to kinda talk about, you know, as we see all the celebrities and the mailings and everything they sort of deluges with people with all of this information.

Can you just talk about what are some of the important things to consider with Medicare Advantage, which, you know, just to be clear for everybody, is sort of that second option that Ari referenced earlier.

Yeah. And to Laura’s point, at the outset, you can’t have both. It’s one or the other. You can go Medigap a standalone drug plan or you go Medicare Advantage. It’s one or the other.

Now Medicare Advantage, as Josh mentioned, heavily advertised on television. You could choose your favorite Medicare Advantage spokesperson. Joe Namath William Shattner, Jimmy Walker. We have an example on the next slide of just how many commercials there are. What Medicare Advantage does is it replaces original Medicare with a plan administered by a private insurance company subject to that private insurance company’s network of doctors. In other words, it’s managed care. This is an HMO or PPO.

It often includes additional benefits, like prescription bundled in and dental and vision, but there are restrictions on the doctors that you can see and the care that you can get. So for people who want the most flexible, the most flexible and most comprehensive coverage, it’s just not going to work as well as Medigap for you.

Here’s the the slide with that example.

Yeah.

I love it. It’s like we’ve all seen these. And many of our listeners, I’m sure, you could kind of pick your pick the one that shows up on on your local station or whatever you’re watching. So I love I love this reminder, to kind of zoom out for maybe the noise that we that we see on the media. So, alright, we are three days out here from the annual enrollment, what should clients be thinking about during this time?

It’s so important the open enrollment period ends December seventh. So this is your time to review your coverage for the upcoming year or to change your coverage. So here are the rules that you need to know in order to be prepared for Sunday.

First, during the open enrollment period, you can sign up for or change your Medicare Advantage Plan. But if you have a Medigap plan, you don’t need to worry about it as long as you keep paying your premiums.

Second, you can use this time to switch from a Medicare Advantage Plan to original Medicare and then sign up for a Medigap plan. Though there are some restrictions because in forty six states, if you’re past six months after having started Medicare, you need to health qualify unless a guaranteed issue right applies, which are few and far between.

The final thing that you can do during the Medicare open enrollment period is sign up for or change your drug plan. So that’s why it’s marry your Medigap, date your drug plan, or your advantage plan because this is the dating season right now.

Do it every year just because Joe Namath is talking about important benefits on television doesn’t mean that those benefits are going to work for you because Joe doesn’t know your doctors. He doesn’t know what prescriptions you take. And finally, Joe doesn’t know your priorities, so you should adjust or reconfirm your coverage every year, and you should do it before December seventh. People don’t realize that Medicare plans change every year unless you have Medigap.

So your health changes too. We need to review your coverage to make sure you’re on the plan that has the lowest cost for you, has your doctors and network, and covers your prescriptions affordably. So make sure you use this time to review your coverage if you have a drug plan or an advantage plan. This is something an independent unbiased advisor can really help with. We have all plans nationwide at the touch of our fingertips, And we’d be more than happy to help you. Just reach out to us through your Mercer advisor, or you can use time to book with us at the very end of the presentation as a thank you for attending.

So here’s your checklist to take advantage of the Medicare open enrollment period. The first thing is to go through your annual notice of change. You should have received this in the mail last month. So if you’re already on Medicare and have a specific drug plan or a specific advantage plan, Those carriers were required to send you information on how your plan will operate for the upcoming year.

So go through it carefully and make sure that the changes aren’t surprise to you. Second, go through your three ps, write down your doctors, your drugs, and your priorities for the upcoming year. Has your health changed do you anticipate it might change? Are you planning to do more traveling for the upcoming year?

All of that is important in determining whether the right whether your plan from last year is going to work for you for the upcoming year. And then finally, schedule your free Medicare consult with our team And let’s go through your three ps together because there are new plans added every single year, and there might be one out there that’s going to work better for you. We also wanna make sure that you take advantage of the upcoming legislative changes.

Thanks, Ari. I think this is great. And we’re gonna, shift gears a little bit to what Laura was talking about earlier. This idea of this master class, which I think is really exciting.

So every single year, we have a few people that come to us. They sit down in our office, and, they say, you know, Josh, like, I love my Medicare plan. You know, like, you were talking about it. Similar stories about how great the coverage is and what people have found actually really surprising about it.

But they will say, look, I had this event in my financial life And I just don’t understand why I’m paying so much for Medicare right now. Can you help people kinda think about this this concept of Irma which basically is the way that we think about, how much we are paying for Medicare. And then, most importantly, what are some of the things that you guys can help to, maybe even alleviate some of those added costs associated with Medicare Part B and D?

Absolutely.

Who does the Medicare high earner tax apply to? That’s what we’re shifting gears to. The Medicare high earner tax applies to someone who files solo and earns more than ninety seven thousand dollars a year or someone who files jointly and earns more than a hundred and ninety four thousand dollars per year. This is based, so twenty twenty three Irma is based on your twenty twenty one tax return a two year look back. So they’re going back to your twenty twenty one tax return.

What if your circumstances have changed since then? Our team deals with this every single day. If your circumstances have changed, then I would recommend filing a form forty four appeal. You can actually request that Social Security adjust your Irma.

And these are all synonymous terms, Medicare high earner tax, Irma, or income related monthly adjustment amount. It all refers to the same thing. And here at chapter, we help people appeal their Irma every day. And I wanna get into how we do that. So for the very first time, we’re going to break down how to file form forty four.

So the first is this is the form to appeal your Medicare high earner and there are actually two surcharges.

One is on Medicare part b, and the other is on Medicare part d. So there’s actually two high earner taxes.

Now this form appeals both of them, and you wanna make sure that you’re using the most recent version of the form, which is from December of twenty twenty two. And if you don’t have this form, please reach out to your Mercer advisor and we’ll be sure to get it to you.

On the next slide, Let’s go through what qualifies to appeal your Irma. There’s eight life changing events, and they are as follows.

Marriage, divorce, death of one spouse, work stoppage, which is the most common one, work reduction, which is the second most common, loss of income producing property, loss of passive income, and then employer settlement payment. So if you fall into one of those eight life changing events, then you have justification to appeal your Irma. Notice starting Medicare isn’t one of the reasons. It needs to fall into one of these life changing events, and you’re only allowed to choose one.

On the next slide, let’s go through how you tell Social Security to use a different year than the two year look back. In step two of this form, you would put in the tax here that you’re asking Social Security to look at. So if you stopped working at the end of twenty twenty one, then you would be asking Social Security to look at last year. Ari, why don’t they already have last year?

Well, because it there’s oftentimes a delay in Social Security obtaining your tax return. So that’s why they look two years back. All this form does is ask them to use a more recent year. So if you had a work stoppage at the end of twenty twenty one, let’s say you retired, then you would be appealing, you would be using twenty twenty two as the basis for your appeal.

And you would put in your modified adjusted gross income, and then Social Security would adjust what you owe based on that amount.

What some people get confused about on this form is with step three. Step three is if your income is even going down further in a future year. So for example, if your work stoppage ended if your work stoppage was the last day of the year in twenty twenty one, and then you put year twenty twenty two in step two, you could then communicate to Social Security I expect that this will also continue into twenty twenty three as well. And so they’ll keep that on file, and so it does double duty for you. If that doesn’t apply to your circumstances, then you would just leave step three blank.

And then finally, what do you do with the form?

Here, you sign it, you put in your mailing address, and you fax it to the Social Security Administration. You fax it to your local Social Security Administration office, or you send it by certified mail, so that you have proof that you sent it in.

Ari, you break it down. This seems like incredibly straightforward.

From a master class standpoint. I’m seeing questions come in now even around how to connect. And and I’ve actually had the pleasure of working with your team on this for a couple of my clients that I work with that that maybe had a larger income year. And so we were able to work with your team on walking through this form, being able to submit it, and ultimately get that appealed and get that Irma amount lowered, which was just the clients were thrilled.

And so just the end result of, partnering with with chapter to be able to do that was really meaningful and save these clients hundreds of dollars every year, which was just a great benefit. So for those of you, you know, that are that are listening and kind of wondering, hey, I need to review my medigap or I need to review my overall Medicare coverage, should I do today? You know, feel free to we’d love to have the opportunity to schedule a consultation. This is very simple.

You can scan this QR code or go to the link right below. That’s links dot s chapter dot org forward slash mercer consult. And this is a great way to just schedule an appointment just to learn more about and see how chapter can help you. There’s no cost to do this.

This is a free benefit that comes with being a Mercer advisor’s client. And so I would encourage everybody to take advantage of this. And like Ari said, just review that every year. And it just is a great way as we’re entering that enrollment season to say, you know, am I in the right spot?

Do I need to take a look at it? And again, if if you have questions, the the chapter team is amazing at being able to walk through those. And like I said earlier, Ari really allows you to break that into bite sized pieces so that you feel confident in your plan moving forward.

So thanks again, Ari, for for walking us through all of this. So know we’ve got a lot of questions that are are coming into the chat here. I’ve seen that we’ve answered so many. So we’re gonna shift gears into a time of some questions that we get regularly.

And one of the things that I wanted to just kick off here is this idea of, you know, people talk. They talk to what their their neighbors are doing, the people across the street. So, Ari, a question that that I often see is my neighbors love their Medicare plan.

So should I just get the same one as my neighbors? What do you think about that? Well, it’s it’s definitely a data point that your neighbor has a Medicare plan that they really like. So it it it’s not something to dismiss. The questions would be, does your neighbor see the same doctors as you? Does the neighbor want to go to the same institutions as you would want to go to if you developed a chronic condition?

Does your neighbor take the same medications as you? And then finally, does your neighbor have the same life priorities as you do? Perhaps your neighbor is more of a home body and you’re someone who loves to adventure and travel and perhaps you’re more spontaneous.

If there’s a no to any one of those parts, any one of those questions, then I would certainly encourage you to consider reviewing your coverage before the December seventh deadline, or perhaps there’s a plan that your neighbor doesn’t know about because they haven’t adjusted their coverage for a while. So you could be doing a favor to your neighbor by actually finding out what’s on the market for twenty twenty four. And here we have database of every single plan that’s available to you. And we search across it and find the right one for you based on your three ps. There’s no charge to work with us.

And we’d love to help.

Alright. I think that’s great. The next question that we have here is sort of similar.

But almost the reverse of that. I’ve really enjoyed the plan that I’ve been on.

I don’t see any major problems or gaps with it.

But should I review this? Is there any benefit to me in taking the time, you know, out of my busy schedule and going and having a conversation and doing that? Like, help us think through that. Absolutely.

If you’re on a Medigap plan, it’s guaranteed renewable. Just keep paying your premiums and review your drug coverage for the upcoming year. It’ll take less than fifteen minutes to accomplish with a chapter advisor. So marry your Medigap, date your drug plan.

If you’re on an advantage plan, we should absolutely review it. Because the plans can change even mid mid year. Doctors can drop out a network even in the middle of the year. So we wanna make sure that your doctors will still be covered for the upcoming year that your prescriptions are taken care of and affordable to you and that you take advantage of upcoming legislative changes.

That’s awesome. Well, so as, Laura and I have been thinking throughout, please, you know, continue to submit your questions. We are going to be going through and asking some of them, that you have been asking live. And we’re gonna kinda leave this slide here up so that if you want that QR code for how to schedule a meeting with chapter, you know, pull out your phone, use the photo section to kind of pull up that link, and that will be how you can schedule a consultation with them. You can also reach out to your Mercer advisor team, and we can help with that as well. And then the link is below. So we’re trying to make it as easy as we can to have that kind of one on one personal conversation with with chapter.

I think Ari to to kick it off a question that I sometimes get, you went through that really night master class on appealing the the Irma charges in part b and part d I sometimes get the question. What if I have had a change in income a couple of times during my Medicare earning years? If I filed it several years ago and I have another change for some reason, Am I allowed to do it again maybe three, four, five years later if that were to come up and apply? Absolutely. As long as you fit into one of the eight life changing events.

There’s also a question on Cap gains. Cap gains counts. Right. I saw that on the on the sale of a home, possibly. Can you talk a little bit about what the the sale of a property? You know, I we have a lot of clients that have rental properties or know, a a second home that they might be selling or downsizing.

What is the rental property? Would that kind of qualify under? I think I need to answer, but Yeah. So a a primary house would be excluded up to a certain amount, but the secondary house is going to count, unfortunately. So if you’ve sold a second or third house perhaps, then that will count towards your modified adjusted gross income. There is an exclusion, though, for a primary residence.

Great.

There’s also a oh, go. Got it. Can I just speak really quick to loss of passive income? Yeah. Loss of or pardon loss of income producing property?

This has a very specific interpretation to the government. This is really about uncompensated loss. So if your loss was due to investment fraud, theft, then or or if it was due to a natural disaster, then that’s what’s going to count as loss of income producing property.

That’s great. We’ve actually, you know, we didn’t cover this in this, conversation, but we have covered it in other ones. But I think it might be really helpful. Just to give the very high level view of when you’re first thinking, well, this conversation has been a lot about once you’re already signed up for coverage, but for people who are not yet enrolled in Medicare, can you just give, like, the very basic on that the window during which they should think about having a conversation with chapter is they’re getting ready to sign up for Medicare the first time?

Yeah. If you’re approaching Medicare, let’s say, by way of turning sixty five, you’re going to have a seven month initial enrollment period that begins three months before the month in which you turn sixty five. So reach out to us three to six months before you start Medicare so that we can get you all set up and give you the instructions on how to apply to enroll in original Medicare, which takes less than five minutes if you do it online.

Don’t call the Social Security Administration to sign up for Medicare. They won’t help you, and you’ll wait on hold for over an hour. It’s a bad call center experience. Instead, Let us help you with the instructions on how to sign up, and you access your online Social Security account, and then there’s just a few clicks in order to sign up for Medicare. If you’re approaching sixty five, the time to do it is three months before the month in which you turn sixty five, and you definitely wanna do it in case there’s a government shutdown you have a January birthday, you’re actually in your window right now to sign up for Medicare part a and part b, and you’ll receive a January first effective date.

What if you’re still working? What if you’re past age sixty five and you’re on yours or your spouse’s work provided coverage? As long as Your or your spouse’s employer has twenty or more employees you can remain on network provided coverage, but you definitely wanna do a comparison as to whether it’s good value for you. Because if you have a multi thousand dollar deductible, Medicare might be the way to go because Medicare is quite comprehensive, and the deductible is only two hundred and twenty six dollars for part b. So it would definitely be worth doing the math unless your employer is giving you or your spouse free insurance.

That’s really great. I think, another well, actually, something that has come in as the questions, and I’ll just sort of answer this for a lot of people. We will be posting a recording of this, on our web just like we have done in the past. A few people have asked if there’s gonna be a recording, or or the slides, we will post this on our website. Usually takes us a few days, but it will be posted. So if you wanna go back and review any of this, you can.

One person asked, you know, what’s the purpose? Why is there a penalty for not signing up for part d on time.

What’s sort of the the thought process on why that even exists?

Really good question because someone who’s not on any prescriptions might be wondering why am I forced to sign up for drug coverage then or face a penalty if I don’t have creditable coverage otherwise?

And the reason is because insurance runs on having log and having a large group of people with the product. So that is what sustains the Part D program is having some people who are healthier than others, having some people who are less healthy than others. And so, essentially, it’s a market for your drug coverage, and it’s obtained through a private insurance company. So I hope that addresses law of large numbers why the government has a requirement that you sign up for Medicare Part D or face a penalty if you choose not to because then you’re just betting on your health And remember, there’s adverse selection here. If you wait until you’re unhealthy enough, then you are avoiding paying in in the years in which you didn’t need very much drug coverage, and now you’re taking advantage of the rest of the group by signing up only once you’re less healthy and need it.

That’s a great great reminder. And and Ari, I think I’m I’m still seeing a lot of questions around just getting connected with chapter. And, obviously, we’ve got the QR code here. Can you just walk through for listeners today, kind of what that process with your team looks like? I’ve had several clients go go through it, and it’s been a great experience. But just from your perspective, what can listeners expect when they reach out to schedule a consultation?

What they can expect is you’ll get to choose the time that’s most convenient to you to meet with us. We’ll have a one on one zoom personal and you’re welcome to bring your Mercer advisor to, if you like. And we’ll go through your three piece. We’ll go through your providers, your prescriptions, and what’s important to you, your priorities, And then that’ll help frame the conversation about what plan type to choose. And remember, it’s one or the other, Medigap or Medicare Advantage, and then which specific plan And the way that we search for the specific plan is by using our platform that has all plans nationwide, zip code by zip code, county by county across the United States. And we’re the only advisory that has access to this type of tool.

Laura, I’m glad you asked that question about process. I wanna ask a follow-up one. I think everybody should know how any of their advisors get paid. So, Ari, I’d love for you to tell everybody, like, chapter is not a non profit. How does chapter make money? How do you guys get paid?

We earn revenue from insurance companies, and it doesn’t matter too. Me and our team of advisors, which plan you choose. What’s important to us is that you choose the best fitting coverage based on your three ps.

Excellent. We’ve answered over seventy five questions. Live is fantastic.

This is amazing. You’re all you’re keeping them coming. So, if anyone has additional questions, we’d love to to keep answering some of these. Again, I think that a theme that I’m seeing too, Ari, if you wanna go back and just highlight again around the plan g versus plan n versus, you know, some other plans, that Josh mentioned on the alphabet soup. Can you just highlight again, you know, kinda what you’re thinking is around plan g?

Dur, so for someone who’s new to Medicare or just recently started Medicare, plan g is the most comprehensive option you can get.

There is another plan called plan n, plan letter type n, and it’s a little less expensive than plan g, but there are three differences between plan n and plan g.

First, if you’re hospitalized and you aren’t admitted within twenty four hours, then you owe a fifty dollar co under plan n.

Two, when you go to the doctor, you have a co pay of twenty dollars under plan n, whereas plan g has no co pays. Third, and finally, and this can really be a rub for some people. If your doctor doesn’t accept the Medicare assigned amount, then Medicare plan n can add, or, excuse me, your provider can add fifteen percent to your bill. They can add a fifteen percent excess charge.

So I see a question about excess charge. This is the fifteen percent excess charge. Under Plan g, your insurance carrier needs to pay it. Under plan n, your insurance carrier can pass along that fifteen percent to you, which can really defeat the premium savings.

Now this move varies state by state, though, that that whether a state allows the carrier to pass on excess charges varies state by state.

I think that’s what’s been so helpful as I’ve gotten feedback from my clients is just knowing that there’s myriad of options out there. They’re so complicated different providers and different, you know, zip codes and all these things, and having the ability to kind of filter and sort on what’s most important is really, really helpful.

I actually really like this question that just came in. So I wanna kinda highlight it for everybody.

So we’ve heard a lot, especially this year. And and even in recent years, in general about a government shut it down. You know, the government closing down because, you know, there’s gridlock in Congress and all of these issues that, you know, just a really a big problem today.

What’s your thought on whether or not that would cause people to not be able to receive Medicare payments or their insurance coverage, that they’re getting through Medicare?

Good news and bad news, the good news is that Medicare payments will continue even under a shutdown.

Just keep paying your premiums because if you don’t pay your premiums, then you’re going to lose your insurance. So continue to pay your premiums and your doctors, providers will still get paid. By the government. The bad news is it’s going to result in processing delays. So if you’re approaching Medicare and you’re in your initial enrollment period, or you’re planning to leave your work provided coverage, let’s say at the end of the year or your spouse is planning to, I would act sooner than later before the government shuts down because it’s definitely going to result in processing delays for people getting their red, white, and blue card.

That’s fantastic.

Laura, any last questions that you see before we wrap things up?

I think, again, just a lot of the the questions are around going back and watching the previous webinar. So Josh, you mentioned this before, but this is on mercy advisors dot com under the tab called Insights. If you didn’t grab that QR code, we’ll also be sending this out to everyone that registered So you’ll have a copy of this webinar recording, and then there you can have a link. We’ll also I think we can include a link to those other webinar recordings as well.

If you wanna go back and and really get, you know, this is like one zero one two zero one three zero one level series on on Medicare. So we’ve really we’re really moving the needle, I think, from an education standpoint, and appreciate all the engagement. But that’s the last thing that I can see on my side, Josh. So we’ll turn things back to you.

Excellent. Well, I do wanna just wrap things up by extending a really special thanks both to Ari who you all can see But especially to all of the chapter, Medicare advisors that you can’t see who have literally been, like, typing furiously answering questions, I can watch them coming through.

If we weren’t able to get to one of your questions today, I highly encourage you to do one of two things.

Reach out to your Mercer adviser. We can help either put you in touch with chapter or possibly even answer that question that you have. But the second one is feel free to reach out directly to chapter. They have a great scheduling system. It’s amazing. You could actually schedule a meeting with them tomorrow.

And possibly, sir, even as early as today, they it’s amazing how quickly people are able to get in and have a conversation with them.

The I think what’s important to take away from this is that Medicare is a key component of anyone’s financial plan. What Ari highlighted and what we’ve talked about in other con stations. It’s just how personalized this advice is to you, just like the financial advice that we give to you here at Mercer Advisors. This is really where this sort of intersection of health and wealth are really, really important.

So we do encourage you to take this very seriously. We want to help you. I know the folks at chapter really want to help you. So know, if you have any lingering question, please reach out.

This is really what we are here for.

And I think, lastly, just a big thank you to all of you guys amazing, questions that came in through the chat, a really amazing response and attendance today. So thank all of you guys for your time, your attention, and spending some time with us today. We hope that you have a great rest of your day, and we look forward to connecting with you soon. Thank you very much.