During the Annual Enrollment Period, October 15 to December 7, you can join, switch or drop a Medicare Advantage plan, join, switch or drop a Part D drug plan, or move between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Whatever you choose starts January 1. If you make several changes, the last one you submit before December 7 is the one that counts.
What you can change
Switch from one Advantage plan to another.
Switch from one drug plan to another.
Leave Original Medicare for an Advantage plan, or leave Advantage for Original Medicare and a drug plan.
Add a drug plan if you did not have one, though a late penalty may apply.
What you cannot change
Annual Enrollment does not cover Medicare Supplements. You can apply for a Supplement any time of year, and outside your first six months on Part B the company can ask health questions. See the answer on switching back.
It does not cover Parts A and B themselves. Those enroll through Social Security in their own windows.
Why review even if you are happy
Plans change every year. Your drug plan can move a prescription to a higher tier, raise its deductible or drop your pharmacy from its preferred list. Your Advantage plan can change its copays, its extras or its network. The plan mails an Annual Notice of Change in September that lists every change. Most people never read it. I do.
A ten-minute review each fall catches a drug plan that will cost you $600 more next year, and that is not an unusual number.
The other window
If you are on an Advantage plan and January arrives with a surprise, the Advantage Open Enrollment Period, January 1 to March 31, lets you make one more switch to a different Advantage plan or back to Original Medicare.
Watch out for the phone calls
This is the season of aggressive calls and television ads. A plan with the loudest commercial is not the one that fits your doctors. Nobody from Medicare calls you to sell a plan.
Request a plan check before December 7 and I compare your current plan against next year's options using your actual doctors and prescriptions. If your plan is still the best fit, I tell you that and you change nothing.