PSA - If you enroll in Medicare Advantage, you could be stuck for life

[W_HAMILTON]

88. Yep, I learned this the hard way when I was trying to change insurance on behalf of my elderly mom.

Apparently she got roped in a Medicare Advantage plan a loooong time ago. She was paying pretty expensive monthly premiums, too, so I'm guessing the Medicare broker (or whatever they are called) that steered her into this plan did so just because they got a bigger kickback than if they put her on a no-monthly premium plan. The benefits weren't even that good, relatively speaking.

She had a stroke last year and I knew she was going to be needing better insurance, so I looked into switching her back to "traditional Medicare" and I was told that she would be denied (because of her age and preexisting conditions) or it would be so expensive I wouldn't be able to afford it, so, she was essentially stuck with Medicare Advantage. The same Medicare Advantage (Humana) that tried to kick her out of a rehab facility based on their AI projections of how long she should be there and -- surprise, surprise! -- regardless of her doctor's orders or updates, they tried to kick her out on the exact day they had originally projected two or three weeks prior, when she first entered.

I helped my sister navigate signing up for Medicare just last year after learning all of this and I encouraged her to get "traditional Medicare" plus a supplement, since it was her initial sign-up. I told her she could always switch over to Medicare Advantage if it got to be too expensive, but if she started out on Medicare Advantage, odds are she would never be able to switch back since they could deny you after that initial sign-up period where they cannot do so.