Making sense of Medicare is no easy task.
A new book aptly titled “Medicare 101” by financial journalist Kimberly Lankford is a practical roadmap to help you make the best decisions about your coverage.
The alphabet of choices ranges from Part A (hospital care and services) to Part B (medical care, including preventive services), to Part C (Medicare Advantage), to Part D (prescription drug coverage). Plus Medicare Supplement (Medigap).
It’s head-spinning and frankly stressful to compare coverage options and select a plan. Lankford’s book works as a guide in the process.
Here are edited excerpts of our recent conversation:
Kerry Hannon: What are some of the costly pitfalls that folks have when it comes to signing up for Medicare?
Kim Lankford: They don’t understand that they have to sign up. Unless you’ve already enrolled in Social Security, you’re not automatically enrolled in Medicare.
It’s simple to enroll in Medicare. You go to the Social Security Administration website during your initial enrollment period, around age 65. It is a seven-month window: three months before your 65th birthday, the month of your birthday, and three months after. If you miss that, it can lead to higher monthly premiums due to late penalties for Part B and Part D for the rest of your life.
Those who are still working need to talk with their HR department to confirm their employer’s health plan covers them.
If you work for an employer that has fewer than 20 employees, you generally have to sign up for Parts A and B. If you have health insurance coverage from a large employer, that can continue to be your primary coverage.
What a lot of people do is sign up for Part A because they don’t have to pay premiums for that, but not sign up for Part B while they’re working.
If you missed your initial window, you can sign up later if you were covered by an active employer group health plan (yours or your spouse’s).
If you are working and contributing to a Health Savings Account (HSA), is it okay to sign up for Medicare?
You might not want to sign up for Part A yet. Once you enroll in Medicare, you’re no longer eligible to contribute to an HSA. But you can tap your HSA funds tax-free for qualified medical expenses, including Medicare premiums, deductibles, copays, and coinsurance.
What’s the biggest misconception people have about Medicare in general?
They think it’s free. You have monthly premiums for Medicare Part B, which are $202.90 per month now.
Another misconception is that everyone pays the same for Medicare. Not so.
If you have higher income, that’s not just higher income from a job, but it’s also higher income if you are taking withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement savings, which counts in the income calculations. If you’re making a Roth conversion from a traditional IRA, that money is taxable and is included in the calculation for the high-income surcharge.
