Medicare

You should be able to find everything you need on the Medicare site.

 

We use the same insurance agent for all of our insurance, @Von Jones . If you have an agent for your auto and home insurance, he probably also helps with health insurance. If you talk with him (her?), he can help you get set up for Medicare and also find the best Medicare supplement for your specific needs.
Each fall, the agents get all of the new information about what Supplement plans and prices each company is offering for the next year, and around November, he goes over the different options with us , to make sure we are still getting the plan that works best for us.

An interesting thing is that Bobby and I both have Advantage plans, and we have basically the same advantage plan, but Bobby’s is through United Health Care, and mine is through Humana.
The reason is silly and simple.
Both companies include Silver Sneakers as a member benefit, but Humana includes the part of our fitness center that has the swimming pool, and not the weight lifting part of the gym.
UHC is just the opposite , and it covers the weight room and machines, but not the swimming area.
Since I swim, and Bobby lifts weights, we each do better with different companies.

Except for a booklet each year that tells about Medicare changes, we really do not get much from Medicare itself, but we still get mailings from all kinds of companies wanting to sell supplements, just like you are getting.
If you do not have a good insurance agent that you are working with already, then you might want to find one who has an office nearby, and let him walk you through the steps of getting signed up for Medicare.

Once you have that taken care of, you can just throw away all of the sales mail that will keep on happening for the rest of your life.

 

As I mentioned, I think, in an earlier post, I wouldn't get too hung up in being sure that you have selected the one best plan for you, because you can change it every year if you want to. It's important to sign up for it on the first year you are eligible, but you're not locked into a plan for more than a year. The guy who I finally called to come give me a pitch was not doing a hard-sell, plus he represented more than one plan so when I decided to change to an Advantage plan the following year, he also represented a few different Advantage plans.

That site is one of the few things that the government has done right, I think.

 

You might want to call your agent and ask him if he does Medicare. If he does, then once he helps you sign up, you will be a Medicare client of his, and he will probably contact you each year to update your plan if necessary.
Since he has not been doing Medicare for you already, you probably need to let him know that you are interested in finding a plan and getting signed up for regular Medicare benefits. In Alabama, you have to ask about a Medicare advantage plan before they are allowed to explain it to you, for some reason.
If your insurance agent does not do health and Medicare, he can refer you to someone locally who does handle Medicare supplements.

 

That might be a federal thing because they do that in Maine, too. They can send you generic stuff in the mail but you have to contact them before they'll call you or come by to give you a pitch. I guessing there were some cases of unethical selling going on.