It’s that time of year again – open enrollment for Medicare and insurance coverage through many employers.
- Medicare open enrollment: October 15, 2022 – December 7, 2022
- Employer open enrollment: commonly in October or November (always confirm the dates with your HR Department)
When reviewing coverage and possible changes, we consider the following:
1 – How’s it working for you?
If you are not happy with your current coverage, this is the perfect time to make a change. If you are happy with it (perhaps because you haven’t used it?), then it may be fine to stay with what you have. An annual review of the options is always good.
2 – Has something changed in your life?
For health insurance, some of the common changes are adding a family member (or dropping a family member from coverage) or a change in health conditions.
On a personal note, a family member recently developed a new chronic condition that has baseline medical costs (assuming no complications) of around $20,000/yr before insurance. While insurance is covering everything well this year, you can bet I’ll be checking our options in more detail every year going forward.
3 – Has something changed in your plan?
Many things can change in insurance plans, including premiums, coverage, and in-network providers.
We recently saw the following changes in a retiree’s Medicare Part D plan. For 5 years she was paying relatively low premiums for Part D prescription coverage. This fall, she was notified that the monthly premium will triple in 2023. The annual premium will increase from less than $250 to over $600 per year. For this retiree, the annual review can be made by looking at published data on a state website.
Washington state retirees can compare plans here.
2023 Part D information is here.
4 – Will prior elections continue or roll over? Or do you need to sign up to continue the benefit?
If there are no changes to a health plan, the default option is typically to keep the plan and make no changes. If the plan changes, you might be moved into a different default option. For some other benefits, such as certain types of FSAs, we sometimes see that the default is set at $0 even if you contributed in the current year. If you do not elect a higher amount, you will not be able to participate in it.
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