Enroll medicare-account

Your official Medicare account. (Whether or not receiving benefits subsidized by HPInc or HPE.)

A member asked about using your personal account on the official Medicare site. Good question.

1. If you are on Medicare, you automatically have a personal account at http://www.medicare.gov (Not medicare <dot> com ! )

- Activate your official Medicare account at https://www.medicare.gov/account/login

- You can sign up to receive notifications via email or text, instead of -- or in addition to -- the default postal mail.

- Medicare maintains a central "Enrollment DataBase" to ensure that someone cannot be enrolled in multiple Advantage or Drug plans for the same time period. Insurers automatically report new enrollment approvals to Medicare, which continuously checks for coverage overlap. If a new policy that covers the same time period is found, Medicare causes the previous policy to be canceled.

You can see a little of what the Enrollment Database has about you.

Click the blue "Check Plan Summary" button to see your current plans. (Plans you have had for a long time may display only the insurer name, but not the specific plan name and number.)

- You can click the green "Find Plans Now" to research plans available to you -- as described at #1 above.

- There is a chat feature.

- Check claims, get Medicare Summary Notices, print temporary Medicare card, etc.

2. Research available plans. No login required: To see all Advantage, Medigap, and Drug plans available in your county from any source -- go to the official US Government site and enter your ZIP code and county.

To see all Medicare plans available in your county from any source -- go to the official Medicare Plan Finder, and enter your ZIP code and county. The genuine site: https://www.medicare.gov/plan-compare

For Advantage and Drug plans, the site lists all plans offered in your county -- with plan details and Medicare's official "Star" quality rating. For Medigap plans -- which are available state-by-state -- the site lists all insurers who offer plans in your state. Some plans are limited to specific geographic areas or specific groups; some only sell direct or through a single agency.

Price, drug, and provider information on any site -- whether the official Plan Finder, a sales agency such as AlightRHS, or a insurer's website -- may be incorrect. Verify with primary sources.

For retirees and covered family members not yet eligible for Medicare, including surviving spouses, start at the federal marketplace https://www.healthcare.gov

3. The best source of Medicare information. No login required: The official Medicare site http://www.medicare.gov is very thorough and well done.

Warning! Many health insurance websites carry authoritative-sounding information -- and appear to be operated by government, non-profit, or other impartial sources -- but are actually collecting sales leads. (Including the official-looking "medicare -dot- com" and -dot- org sites.)

See the very clear official "Medicare & You" book. You may have been sent the paperback via U.S. Mail. You can download and search: https://www.medicare.gov/publications/10050-medicare-and-you.pdf

Much information about Medicare is biased for business reasons. We have a list of several excellent articles on the official Medicare site: https://www.hpalumni.org/enroll-medicare-info

--cg, moderator