Patricia Barry - Medicare for Dummies AARP

Medicare For Dummies, 4th Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945334

ISBN 978-1-119-68993-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-68994-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-68999-7 (ebk)

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 3
3. Chapter 6
4. Chapter 7
5. Chapter 10
6. Chapter 16

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 3
3. Chapter 4
4. Chapter 9
5. Chapter 10
6. Chapter 11
7. Chapter 13

For most people, turning 65 or otherwise becoming eligible for Medicare feels like stepping into alien territory without a map. The signposts you think should be there often arent immediately visible. When you ask for directions, you cant always be sure youre being pointed down the right path.

Medicare For Dummies, 4th Edition, is the map you need. It gives accurate, practical information about Medicare in plain language. It shows you how to skirt pitfalls and avoid wrong turns that can cost you dearly. My goal is to help you make informed, confident decisions that take you where you want to be. How can I promise that? Because this book is, in essence, the result of thousands of questions Ive received over the years from people just like you.

I know from many of those questions that people eligible for Medicare often receive incorrect information from sources such as government officials they should be able to trust. Thats why, in these pages, I not only give you information thats firmly based in law but sometimes also identify certain specific regulations (by name, number, and website) that you can use if you need to prove to an official the legal authority for a particular point about eligibility, enrollment, late penalties, and so on. You cant find these useful references, which I offer as a kind of consumer empowerment, in other guides.

Confusion about Medicare is almost inevitable for two main reasons. Its regulations apply to different people in different ways, according to their specific circumstances, so the decisions you need to make may be unlike the next persons. Also, it offers an array of choices that can be bewildering if you dont know how to sift through them to get to the one thats right for you.

So think of your Medicare card as your passport into the terrain of guaranteed health care, where youre welcome regardless of income or pre-existing medical conditions, but you still have to find your way around. And consider this book the road map that helps you navigate the highways and some of the more obscure byways of that system and keeps you on track.

This fourth edition of Medicare For Dummies provides information that was accurate at the time of going to press. But the administration and Congress have announced proposals for radically changing three of the major programs described in this book the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), Medicaid, and Medicare itself. At the time of this writing, none of these proposals have passed into law. And in the case of Medicare, any major change to the program wouldnt take place for several years and wouldnt affect people older than 55 at the time it goes into effect.

Therefore, in the chapters that follow, you find out what you need to know to get through the Medicare maze right now and get the most out of your coverage. You find answers to some questions that are barely addressed and sometimes not touched upon at all in official consumer publications about the program. You discover where to turn for additional help, if you need it. And, as in any For Dummies book, you can easily locate and understand the specific information youre looking for because of the reader-friendly organization and straightforward language.

As you may expect from a program run partly by a federal bureaucracy and partly by private insurance plans, youre going to meet some unavoidable jargon in this book. These terms are worth getting to know because notices you get from the government or the plans or any to-and-fros you have with either will be easier to understand. So I use the following conventions: