New To Medicare Checklist

Congratulations and welcome to Medicare! The good news is that on Medicare you’re able to get fantastic health insurance, far better than almost every single employer group health plan. The bad news is that there are a lot of different options and a lot of misinformation out there that is designed to confuse you. 

Lets make this as simple as possible….Here’s what you need to do:

Enroll in Original Medicare (Parts A & B)

This can be done either online or by appointment at your local social security office.

See our page Applying For Medicare for more details.

Choose Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement

This depends on your budget, health, travel habits, and risk tolerance. Both are great plans but most folks clearly prefer one or the other. Our clients are split pretty evenly between the two, so we don’t believe that one is better than the other. It really just depends on your situation. You may even start on one type of plan and switch to the other type later on.

See our page Supplement vs. Advantage for more details.

Select and enroll in your plan

Once you know what type of plan you want, Supplement or Advantage, you can now evaluate which plan will be best for your situation. This is where we can help. Using our Medicare quoting system, we can enter your information to get a list of 30+ different plans available in your area. We’ll help you narrow down the list based on your situation and our experience working with these companies for many, many years. Once you choose which plan is best for you, we’ll then help you complete the enrollment process, then we’ll monitor your policy until it gets approved by the insurance company.

See our page Medicare Supplement Plans and Medicare Advantage Plans for more details.

Select Prescription Drug Coverage

Medicare will penalize you if you go without creditable prescription drug coverage, so it’s important to get this step right!

If you chose a Medicare Advantage plan – your plan should have a drug plan built in. There are very few situations where we would recommend you to have an advantage plan without a drug plan built in.

If you chose a Medicare Supplement plan – your plan is not allowed to include prescription drug coverage, so you’ll need to get a separate policy for this. We’ll use a list of your prescriptions to find the plan that minimizes your copays.

See our page Medicare Part D for more details.

Decide If You Want Additional Coverage

You’re almost done! Now you need to decide if you want additional coverage that isn’t covered yet. The most popular “ancillary” plans that our clients choose are:

•  Dental / Vision Coverage
• Hospital Indemnity Plans
• Cancer / Heart Attack / Stroke Plans

Shop Dental / Vision Plans by clicking here.

Last Step – Receive Cards in the Mail

Ta Da! Once enrolled, you can expect to receive your insurance cards in the mail along with your policy documents in roughly 10-14 days. All of our clients also receive a handwritten card in the mail with business cards / magnets, so that you always have our contact information when you have questions in the future.

 Summary

The steps to get fully set up on Medicare are:
1. Enroll in Medicare Part A & Part B
2. Choose either a Medicare Supplement plan or Medicare Advantage plan.
3. Decide on the individual plan that best fits your situation.
4. Select Prescription Drug Coverage.
5. Decide whether you want additional coverage to fill the gaps in whatever you choose.

This Medicare stuff can be confusing, huh? We made a video that goes through Medicare step-by-step. This is the easiest way to learn. Check it out!