Medicare announced a “surprise” a few weeks ago: an “upgraded” plan finder for the first time in a decade.
Right now, the challenge is that there are a lot of issues with this platform. Medicare released the final version on October 1st that consumers can use to help with some of their Medicare research.
While the goal was to make the system easier to use, we’ve found that the platform is much more complicated, which many news sources have confirmed. This makes me nervous for many people because it’s very easy to overlook important information which leads to many more Medicare mistakes.
A recent AARP article states, “Medicare beneficiaries and even the counselors around the country who help enrollees navigate Medicare’s plans and choices have told government auditors that the current plan finder is difficult to understand and use.”
This means, if it’s difficult for the Medicare counselors to use, then I expect it to be even more difficult for the individuals trying to figure it out.
Also, Forbes reported, “By its very nature, Medicare plan review is very complex and complicated. I don’t believe there’s much that can be done to change that. In its quest to make this a beneficiary “do-it-yourself” system, however, CMS is eliminating many of the tools that help to find the best plan, the ultimate result. Consequently, beneficiaries will likely experience cost and coverage issues in 2020. That should scare the 45 million who are enrolled in a Part D drug plan.”
So if you are considering using Medicare resources to find you plan, please be very careful. We’ve also received notices from many insurance companies that they’re plans aren’t correctly represented on the platform
Or if you’d rather the Medicare Coach helps you through your decision we have a service called the Medicare Enrollment Concierge.
To see how the Medicare Enrollment Concierge can help you make your right decision in under an hour, CLICK HERE.
