Those beneficiaries (or potential beneficiaries) who do NOT have Part B, for whatever reason, can take advantage of the 2011 Open Enrollment Period to sign up for it. This period begins January 1, 2011 and goes through March 31, 2011. (Don’t confuse it with the new Annual Disenrollment Period, which ends February 14.) During these three months you can call Social Security at 1-800-772-1213 and enroll. Your Part B will begin on July 1, 2011. Some things you should consider include:
You will pay a base premium of $115.40 per month. Note that you will not get the lower premiums that most beneficiaries get by virtue of the fact that their Social Security payments have not received cost-of-living increases recently.
You are also subject to the late enrollment penalty. For each 12 months that you could have had but did not have Part B, you will pay a 10% penalty. So, for example, if you could have signed up for Part B when you turned 65, let’s say in March 2010, your penalty will be 10 percent (you did not have Medicare from March 2010 to and including June 2011, or a total of 16 months. Your monthly penalty is $11.50 (10% of $115.40) and your premium will be $126.90 per month. Months you were covered by an Employer Group Health Plan or were an international volunteer abroad are not penalized. (See page 11 of Managing Your Medicare for the details.) This is no limit to how high this penalty is, nor is it reduced, as is the Part A premium penalty, over time. (However, if you are currently a disabled beneficiary, it will revert to the base premium when you turn 65, and if you are a beneficiary for any reason and get end stage renal disease, it will also revert.)
If your “modified adjusted gross income” in 2009 exceeds $170,000 (if you filed joint) or $85,000 (if you filed individually), you will be subject to the Part B premium surcharge. These surcharges run from $46.10 to $253.70 a month! And these are in addition to any penalty you must pay. These are fully explained on page 19 of Managing Your Medicare. See also my posting of 11/15/10.
You may be in the other income boat – low income. If your monthly income is anywhere in the neighborhood of $1,239 for an individual or $1,660 for a couple or below (the limits are a little higher in Hawaii and Alaska) and you have few “resources” (which generally include cash, savings, bonds, stocks, IRAs, etc, but NOT your home, car, jewelry, household goods, etc., etc.) you should apply for a “Medicare Savings Program” which will pay your Part B premium and possibly your Part B deductible and coinsurances. The rules of what counts as income and what counts as resources are complicated, and even vary from state to state, so you should always think of applying for this. I and many other Medicare counselors are continually amazed by the beneficiaries we run across who are eligible for this but don’t have it! Your state’s Medicaid people run this program, so call them. If you need to know the right number, call 1-800-MEDICARE and they can give it to you.
You will be able to enroll in a Medicare Advantage Plan, that is, a Medicare managed care Plan, also called Part C. (You almost always have to have BOTH Part A and Part B to do so.) You will probably have to wait until the 2011 Annual Election Period (which begins October 15 and ends on December 7) to enroll, and your enrollment will be effective with January 1, 2012. You may be able to enroll sooner if one of the special election periods applies to you (see page 122 of Managing Your Medicare to learn more about these).
If you are 65 or more and this is the first time you ever enrolled in Part B, you will also get a Medigap open enrollment period. It begins July 1, when you get your Part B, and lasts for six full months, that is, until December 31, 2011. During this time you are have a guaranteed right of issue for any Medigap policy sold where you live. It will go into effect the month following the one in which you sign up for a policy, so don’t delay. Note that Medigap policies are also called Medicare supplement policies. And even if you are thinking of signing up for a Medicare Advantage Plan, which will begin January 1, you ought to think of getting a Medigap policy until then.
Finally, if you do enroll in Part B you know you will get it on July 1, so aggressively begin to schedule all applicable preventive and educational services beginning with that date, as these are all Part B services. It may take you months to schedule your “Welcome to Medicare” exam with your physician, so begin lining it up as soon as you enroll. Same for all the other preventive and educational services. And go over chapter 4 of Managing Your Medicare to see what else Part B covers. Perhaps you have put off some physical therapy that you really need, or some mental health services; line these up, too.
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