Medicare Advantage Enrollment Periods II

Some people join Medicare Advantage plans without doing any research about how these plans work or speaking with an agent who can advise them. Therefore they don’t know about all of these rules. They may find themselves enrolled into a plan that their doctor doesn’t accept or that doesn’t include one of their medications. This happens most often in January after a person has used the Annual Election Period to join a Medicare Advantage plan.

For this reason, Congress designed the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period that runs from January 1st – March 31st each year. During this time, you can disenroll from any Medicare Advantage plan and return to Original Medicare. You will be allowed to add a standalone Part D drug plan.

Unfortunately, this does not guarantee that you can return to the Medigap plan you had before. Unless this was your first time ever in a Medicare Advantage plan, then you will usually have to answer health questions and go through medical underwriting to get re-approved for Medigap. Consider this before dropping any Medigap plan to go to Medicare Advantage.

Your other option during the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period is to change from your current Medicare Advantage plan to a different Medicare Advantage plan. Please be aware that you can only use this period once per calendar year.