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My wife and I both turn 65 soon and we just finished signing up for Medicare. I found the process to be a lot more difficult than I expected.
Signing up with the Federal Government for Medicare A & B was easy, they do it for you, and the coverage is easy to understand. The hard part is deciding on some sort of supplemental plan to pay or help pay what Medicare doesn't cover.
During the 3 or 4 months before turning 65 we were bombarded with information from everybody who sells insurance. Everything we received basically said the same thing and described the various plans, and there are a lot of them. What we didn't get was anything that adequately presented the process for deciding on the best plan for us. The brokers I spoke with were happy to mail out their brochures with little or no explanation. Even the representative from the company we eventually decided upon did little to earn any commission other than lick a stamp. In the end, we each made our own decision. But was it really the right one?
I contacted many of our readers here with this question and, with their help, found that the solution is a state program called SHIP, State Health Insurance Assistance Program. Through SHIP, you can get individual help in deciding upon the right supplemental and/or prescription drug plan for you.
Here are the SHIP websites for the Rocky Mountain Region:
Colorado
http://www.dora.state.co.us/Insurance/senior/senior.htm
Idaho
http://www.doi.idaho.gov/shiba/shwelcome.aspx
Montana
http://www.dphhs.mt.gov/sltc/services/aging/ship.shtml
Nevada
http://www.nvaging.net/ship/ship_main.htm
Wyoming
http://www.wyomingseniors.com/WSHIIP.htm
Utah
http://www.hsdaas.utah.gov/insurance_programs.htm
Here you can find SHIP information for your State outside the Rocky Mountain Region:
http://www.workworld.org/wwwebhelp/state_
health_insurance_assistance_program_ship_.htm
Before contacting your SHIP office, here are two good resources for information that you should consider looking at:
First,
http://www.medicare.gov/publications/pubs/pdf/02110.pdf
Second, http://www.medicare.gov/MPPF/Include/
DataSection/Questions/SearchOptions.asp
Gary Pack Senior Living - Rocky Mountain Region
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