carry my husband on my insurance but I want to remove him

by mea120 » Thu May 12, 2011 12:26 pm
Posts: 1
Joined: 12 May 2011

Does Medicare have open enrollment at a certain time of the year or if someone loses their insurance coverage can they sign up at anytime?

Total Comments: 2

Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 11:49 pm Post Subject:

Medicare's open enrollment periods are not "at anytime."

A Medicare beneficiary has a couple of options in terms of enrolling into Medicare:

1. The individual enrollment period: this is the period of time surrounding your 65th birthday. Medicare has a seven-month initial open-enrollment period beginning 3 months before the month of your 65th birthday, the month of your 65th birthday and for the 3 months following your 65th birthday, for a total of 7 full months.

2. If you miss your initial enrollment period, Medicare has an annual open-enrollment period of 1/1 - 3/31 of every year.

That's it. There are "Special Enrollment Periods (SEPs) for those age 65 and older who are still enrolled in an employer-sponsored heath plan (group health), but that doesn't sound like what you're looking for.

This is only detailing open enrollments for traditional Medicare Parts A and B. The Prescription Drug Plan (Medicare Rx, Medicare Part D, Medicare PDP) has different enrollment periods.

Curious- what did you mean in your subject line about getting your husband off of your insurance?

InsTeacher 8)

Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 09:31 am Post Subject:

If the OP's husband is being carried as a dependent on her employer-sponsored health plan, but he is at least 65 years of age and rejected Medicare Part B at age 65 because he had other coverage, then the 8-month SEP would allow him to enroll in Medicare Part B if dropped from the spouse's health plan.

It has not been clarified whether the husband is 65 years of age or not.

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