Good Reasons to Change Your Medicare Advantage Plan

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Good Reasons to Change Your Medicare Advantage Plan

You may wonder: what would be a good reason to change your Part D or Medicare Advantage plan for 2023? Here are some of the most common reasons that plan change during Medicare Open Enrollment:

  • You plan to drop one of your essential medications next year. Your Annual Notice of Change letter will list any changes to its drug formulary for next year. The plan must disclose if they are dropping any medications. They must also tell you if a medication is moving to a more expensive tier for next year. If you take a brand-name medication now that won’t be covered the following year, you may want to change during the OEP to another drug plan that will.
  • Your Medicare Advantage plan is dropping your doctor from its network. Unlike Medigap plans, Medicare Advantage plans have a network of doctors. If one of your doctors is leaving the plan’s network, you can use the Medicare OEP to switch to another plan that your doctor still participates in.
  • Your plan has a drastic increase in premium. Please note that the key word here is “drastic.” Inflation happens to medical insurance plans, just like auto insurance plans. If your auto insurance goes up $3/month next year, would you go through the hassle of changing it? Probably not. Likewise, if the only thing changing on your drug plan is a slight premium increase, you don’t have to switch. But if your drug plan goes up $20/month, you might look to see if any other plan is cost-effective.

The critical thing here is not to make it more difficult than it is. If you are happy and nothing significant changes, don’t feel like you have to shop around just because you hear the word “medicare” every 90 seconds on the radio.

Just review the Annual Notice of Change. See if there are changes that make you want to shop around. Contact your agent for help if you do need to change.

Medicare Advantage Changes for 2023

In 2018, the Bipartisan Budget Act brought changes to Medicare Advantage plans. Whereas Original Medicare does not cover supplemental home health benefits, Medicare Advantage plans can now include them.

So if you are looking at Medicare Advantage plans, you may notice that many of them will now include some supplement home health benefits. This may include personal support services in your home, transportation to and from medical appointments, adult day care services, telehealth medical appointments, over-the-counter allowances, and meal delivery.