Medicare Advantage (otherwise known as Medicare Part C) has an open enrollment period during the first quarter of 2025.
TheStreet Retirement Daily’s Robert Powell, CFP (Certified Financial Planner), and Jae Oh, also a CFP and the author of Maximize Your Medicare, discuss some key nuances of the open enrollment period.
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Powell notes that the Medicare Open Enrollment Period begins Jan. 1 and runs through March 31. He asks Oh what people need to know about it.
“Among all of these windows that you have to change plans, for existing Medicare Advantage plan members, you do have the right to change plans once during the first quarter,” Oh said.
Oh explained further one reality of which retirees need to be aware.
“You first need to be an existing plan member,” Oh said. “You cannot newly enroll in Medicare Advantage during that time.”
Oh discussed an additional important fact about open enrollment.
“This is also the period that people can cancel their Medicare Advantage plan, meaning that they can cancel their plan and return to Original Medicare if they so choose. These are the outstanding characteristics,” Oh said.
“There are additional nuances,” he continued. “For example, if you are trying to enroll in a five-star plan, that is rolling, meaning not subject to this particular three-month period.”
A doctor speaks with a Medicare patient at a hospital. Retirement Daily’s Robert Powell and author Jae Oh discuss key aspects of the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period in 2025.
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Powell explains a fact about the Medicare Annual Election Period
Acknowledging that it can be a confusing process, Powell brings up a key point.
“During Medicare’s annual election period, you can sort of choose whatever Medicare Advantage plan you want, however frequently you want,” he said. “But the last one you choose is the one that you get. But during Medicare Advantage’s open enrollment, you only get the opportunity to do it once.”
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Oh agreed with Powell, and offered some further thoughts.
“That is correct, Bob,” he said. “And I also want to say as part of the ability to cancel your Medicare Advantage plan, if you want to return to Original Medicare, again, much like whenever people try to transition from Medicare Advantage to Original Medicare, I always tell people that the order matters and that if they are attempting to apply for Medigap, or Medicare Supplement, that securing acceptance is of primary importance and should be done first.”
Powell explained that when he thinks about the opportunity to redo one’s Medicare Advantage choice, some of the reasons seem as if they may be obvious.
For example, one might recognize that a doctor is not in their network or that a drug is not covered that they thought was covered.
Oh offered some thoughts about other situations where a Medicare recipient might decide to change their plan.
“There are additional enhanced dental and vision plans that certain Medicare Advantage carriers may offer,” Oh said. “And for example, raising the out-of-pocket maximum benefit limit is an outstanding one.”
“If someone knowingly has very expensive dental work to come in the calendar year,” Oh continued, “That can be enough to change from Medicare Advantage Plan number three to Medicare Advantage Plan number nine. Certainly these combinations do exist.”
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Powell discusses Medicare options for hearing and prescription eyeglasses
Powell mentioned that, regarding hearing and prescription eyeglasses coverage, there are sometimes caps placed on the amounts that are “so-called free.”
Oh added his thoughts on the subject.
“This is kind of like a fundamental misunderstanding about dental, vision, hearing coverage,” he said. “To call them insurance is a little odd to me. I would call them savings plans, meaning that all of these will have a maximum benefit limit that someone can get.”
“That can be a limit on the allowance for new frames, for example,” Oh added. “Under dental, that will be called the maximum benefit limit. That amount is capped. Once exceeding the cap, you are responsible for 100% of the cost.”
For more of this discussion, and to view the video, see Retirement Daily’s coverage of the conversation.
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