Medicare can be weird: Sometimes, bad news for beneficiaries can actually be good news. That’s the case for certain people who’ll be shopping for a 2025 Medigap policy during Medicare’s Open Enrollment Period , which ends December 7, 2024. Here’s why: Say you have a private insurer’s Medicare Advantage plan in 2024 and have decided to switch to Original Medicare for 2025.
Then, you’ll likely also want to buy a Medicare supplemental policy (aka Medigap) to reduce out-of-pocket costs. That’s where problems can begin. When Medigap applicants get rejected In all but four states—Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New York—if apply for a Medigap policy after the first six months of Medicare eligibility, the insurer can reject you due to a pre-existing condition or charge you more because of it.
(A pre-existing condition could be anything from high blood pressure to diabetes to Alzheimer’s , according to a recent KFF health research group report .) “A Medigap insurer can generally turn you down for whatever reason they see fit,” says Ryan Ramsey, associate director of health coverage and benefits at the National Council on Aging. That lack of guaranteed Medigap coverage is the bad news.
The good news for some Medigap shoppers The good news, in a bizarre way, is that if your 2024 Medicare Advantage plan won’t be offered in 2025, you’ll be guaranteed acceptance when applying for a Medigap policy. That’s because a Medicare Advantage plan termination is .
