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ON SCREEN TEXT: Working past 65…
ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Conversations
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ON SCREEN TEXT: What to know about Medicare Part D when still working
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Phil Moeller Author and Medicare expert
PHIL MOELLER: I’m Phil Moeller. I write articles and books about retirement and health care. I've written a lot of articles about Medicare over the years. I want to talk today about making sure you handle your Part D drug coverage properly. This can get tricky with Medicare. So let me break down a few things. First of all, whether you have sufficient coverage.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: 1. Do you have sufficient coverage?
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ON SCREEN TEXT: 2. Have you enrolled at the right time?
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PHIL: Secondly, and most importantly, whether or not you've enrolled in that coverage at the right time. These things seem pretty self-evident, but they're not they can have some hidden traps for you.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: How do I know if my employer drug plan is good?
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PHIL: In the issue of the quality of your health coverage, Medicare rules say that an employer health plans drug coverage must be at least as good as a typical Part D drug plan.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare drug coverage
ON SCREEN TEXT: Employer drug coverage
PHIL: So, if it is, and you have employer drug coverage, it's fine, you can keep your employer drug coverage. However, if you don't have employer drug coverage that's credible. Either because your employer plan doesn't provide good coverage, or your employer plan may no longer provide drug coverage, especially if you work for a small employer with fewer than 20 employees.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Employer plan
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PHIL: So your first job is to say, what is my drug coverage going to be like when I turn 65?
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ON SCREEN TEXT: What if my employer plan isn’t creditable?
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PHIL: Your employer is supposed to provide you a statement certifying whether or not the drug coverage in your plan is credible, compared with a Part D plan. Make sure you get that statement because it's going to protect you down the road if you have any differences of opinion. So, let's assume that your plan is not credible and you have to get Part D. Even though you're going to keep your employer plan, you got to get a Part D drug plan. In this case, you have some other considerations to worry about.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Health savings account
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Part A
PHIL: When you get that Part D plan, you may also have to give up your HSA plan if you have one because to get Part D you have to get part a of Medicare, and Part A of Medicare invalidates continued contributions to an HSA. Although you can still use the money that's in your plan you can't put any new money in, you just need to be aware of that.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: When do I need to enroll in a Part D plan?
PHIL: The other issue I want to make sure you're aware of is that you enroll in Part D on a timely basis.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Enroll on a timely basis
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Part D
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Employer plan not creditable
We return to Phil.
PHIL: There are two approaches here. In the first case, you may need to enroll in Part D, if your employer's drug coverage is not credible, when you turn 65. If that's the case, you have a seven-month initial enrollment period that begins three months before your 65th birthday and extends three months after.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Initial Enrollment Period 7 months
PHIL: Even though you have seven months, I want to make sure you don't be in a situation where you're not covered at all. So you need to worry about health insurance, in this case, Part D drug plan taking effect so that you don't have a period of time when you're not covered for your medications.
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PHIL: Even if you're complying with the initial enrollment period. That's not as important in my mind as it is that you have good coverage throughout.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: What happens when my employer coverage ends?
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Part D
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Creditable employer plan
PHIL: The second situation is when you continue to work with employer drug coverage that is credible, but then you need to retire, or you lose your job, and you then will need to get Part D.
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PHIL: When that happens. You will have what's called an eight-month special enrollment period that begins when you lose your employer coverage.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Part A and Part B Special Enrollment Period 8 months
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Part D
PHIL: That's in Medicare enrollment coverage. But the enrollment period for Part D is a little bit different. It really only extends for about two months after you lose your employer coverage.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Employer statement
Testifies that you have had employer coverage
PHIL: So I want to make sure you don't unintentionally fail to get Part D on a timely basis. When you do enroll in Medicare, you need to make sure you have an employer statement that testifies that you've had employer health coverage from the time you turn 65 until you've decided to either retire or you'd lost that coverage.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Penalty $
PHIL: If you don't have that certified statement. You might end up paying a penalty and you want to avoid that.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: So, what’s the takeaway?
PHIL: Let's recap what we've learned about Part D drug plans. If your employer drug coverage is not credible, you will need to get a Part D drug plan and do so on a timely basis.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Employer plan not creditable
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Part D
PHIL: If your employer plan does have credible drug coverage, you don't have to worry about getting part D. However, when you do retire or otherwise lose that insurance, you will have to get a Part D plan and you need to do that on a timely basis as well.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Loss of coverage
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Part D
PHIL: If you don't sign up for Part D when you need to you can get hit with substantial Late Enrollment penalties, which you'd like to avoid.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Failure to sign up on time
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Penalties
ON SCREEN TEXT: What if I still have questions?
We return to Phil in his chair.
PHIL: I'm Phil Moeller, I thank you for spending some time with me today. I hope I've answered some of your questions. If you have some more questions you can go to Medicare made clear.com to get additional information.
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Visit MedicareMadeClear.com
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ON SCREEN TEXT: Medicare Made Clear brought to you by UnitedHealthcare
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ON SCREEN TEXT: United Healthcare®
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ON SCREEN TEXT: ©2021 United HealthCare Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Medicare Made Clear® by UnitedHealthcare®
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