Elimination of the Open Enrollment Period and Inauguration of the Annual Disenrollment Period

In 2011 the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, which has run from January 1 to March 31 and which allowed you to make a variety of changes to how you got your Medicare, and which Plan you were in, is eliminated. It will no longer be in effect.

In its place is a new Annual Disenrollment Period, which will run only from January 1 to February 14 of 2011 and every year thereafter. It is important to understand that this new period is less than half as long as the previous one, so you will have to act more quickly to make any permissible changes.

The changes you can make during this 45-day period are these: (Note that they are much more restrictive than what you could do in the now obsolete Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period.)

You may leave Medicare Advantage (Part C) and go to Original (fee-for-service) Medicare. The change will be effective first day of month following the date you disenroll from your Medicare Advantage Plan.

And, if you do so, you may join a stand-alone Part D drug plan. You will join this drug plan on first day of month following the date the plan gets your enrollment request. Note that you may enroll in a Part D plan whether or not the Medicare Advantage Plan you were in did or did not have Part D drug coverage.

And you do this either by:

Disenrolling from your Medicare Advantage Plan. This will put you in Original Medicare without any Part D drug coverage.

Or by enrolling in a stand-alone Part D drug plan. This will automatically disenroll you from your Medicare Advantage Plan and put you into Original Medicare and enroll you in the Part D drug plan.

And you may disenroll from your Medicare Advantage Plan and later enroll in a stand-alone Part D drug plan, as long as you enroll by February 14, 2011.

You may NOT join a Medicare Advantage Plan nor switch from one Medicare Advantage Plan to another.

And just to forewarn you, as this is critically important, the “Annual Election Period,” which has run from November 15 to December 31 of each year, will change in the fall of 2011 for enrollments to be effective January 1, 2012. In 2011, this period will begin on October 15 and end on December 7. So be prepared, earlier next fall than you are used to, to figuring out the best Medicare Advantage Plan for you. (This also affects Part D, whether you get it through your Medicare Advantage Plan or a stand-alone Part D plan.)