I'm going to talk about the Medicare birthday rule and specifically for the state of California
however even if you don't live in California this is good information to understand so stay
tuned okay let's talk about the Medicare birthday rule and specifically for California if you're in
California and you're in Medicare you've probably heard of this and you probably don't understand
it and it's certainly important that you do understand it because there are certain states
that mandate some additional benefits and we're talking specifically Medicare supplement plans
we're not talking about Medicare Advantage so if you are on Medicare a and B which is
Original Medicare and then you got a supplement to cover what a and B does not this birthday rule
applies to your Medicare supplement I'll explain exactly what it is and how it functions so that
if you need it in the future it's there for you and across the country Medicare supplements are
standardized so they are identical from state to state to state with the exception of a few
states that we know in California they like to do things a little bit differently so they mandate
some additional protections on their Medicare coverage and while it can be a good thing it also
raises the premium so when you come in to Medicare and you buy your Medicare supplement plan it's
gonna cost more than it does in most every other state and it's important to understand as long as
we're paying for it we might as well know what the protections are so one of those protections is the
Medicare birthday rule and I think it's actually a good protection what it does is it gives you the
ability every year on or about your birthday and I'll give you the specifics in a second to change
Medicare supplement plans without having to answer medical questions so why would that be important
and the reason it would be important is because Medicare supplements do get rate increases as
they go along so almost every year you're going to get a rate increase sometimes they're small
1% 2% 3% sometimes they're big 10 percent or more so what this birthday rule does if your regular
state without protections like this and you become unhealthy or you have a health condition and you
also have received big rate increases you can't change your medicare supplement plan because you
would have to go through medical underwriting with another insurance company and able to do that in
California they built this in so that you do not have to go through medical underwriting but again
you're gonna pay a little more in the beginning as well so everybody's paying for it along the
way we might as well understand how to use it when it gets there someone will give it to you
right now on exactly how it functions and it's really not that complicated so some things to
understand in California is you can change your Medicare supplement plan had any time
and this is true throughout the country Medicare supplements are not like Medicare Advantage where
you have to wait to the open enrollment period or the annual election period at the end of each
year you can change your Medicare supplement any time now understand you need to be in good health
in order to be able to do that so you do need to go through underwriting when it's outside of the
birthday rule so in any other state actually there are some other states that have some protections
as well but the majority is just standardized and you can change it any time but you need to
be healthy to do it so you need to just understand that so if you are healthy and you've been in it's
a great time to compare I'm gonna show you where to compare when we get to the end of this and
super easy to do and if we could save you 10 20 30 or even more dollars a month on your Medicare
supplement plan do it while you're healthy you don't have to wait for the birthday rule if
you're healthy now the California birthday rope let's assume you do have health conditions and
your premium has continued to rise over the years and there's a cheaper option out there for you but
you have a health condition with the California birthday rule you must currently have a Medicare
supplement plan in place you must currently be on American air supplement you can change
without underwriting 30 days before your birthday 30 days after your birthday so it's actually a 61
day period 30 days before your actual birthday third days after so 61 days the policy the new
one would be effect in that 30 day period after your birthday so it's going to take that extra
year of age into consideration for potential rate as rates going forward so you can make your
selection 30 days ahead of your birthday but it's not going to go into effect until the period of
30 days so it's generally going to be the first of the month after your birthday whenever that
birthday is and you can only select a plan that is the same as what you have or less or benefit so if
you're on plant f you can essentially choose any plan because there's no plan higher than
plan F if you're on G you could choose G or N or anything less you could not choose F by going up
in coverage so pretty easy to understand if you are not in good health and you've gotten rate
increases on your Medicare supplement plan and it makes sense to change this is how you do it
in California you wait for your birthday month to come around and then you look to compare and find
the best value and again even in California G is a Jian and it is an N and F is an F so it makes
sense to compare every year whether you're healthy not healthy or whatever the scenario may be and
I've tried to make it easy for you to do that you can visit Medicare price check com it's my website
I don't share your information with anybody but we will provide you a comparison on your current
medicare supplement plan and see if we can't save you literally hundreds of dollars a year
for the exact same coverage so take a few minutes there's a Medicare price check com it's just a
form you fill out you don't have to go through any questionnaires or an event nature makes it
easy to do so I hope you found this helpful and I hope you'll let us do a comparison for you so you
can we can save you a boatload of money on your Medicare supplement plan so have a fantastic day