I told you nothing comes. Something does.
If you're on Original Medicare, there's an envelope on its way that I said wasn't coming.
The Log
Wendell here. Saturdays are for the week's number and for whatever I got wrong.
Where I was wrong
Yesterday, writing about the Annual Notice of Change, I said Original Medicare doesn't send one because it doesn't change that way.
The first half is right. The second half left the wrong impression. A reader on Original Medicare would have finished that sentence thinking nothing lands on his mat this autumn.
Something does. The Medicare & You handbook goes to every Medicare household each year. Medicare's own page gives the timing as late September. It isn't a notice of change and it isn't tailored to you, which is why I left it out. But it carries next year's costs, the plans available where you live, and the dates.
So the position is this. On Medicare Advantage or a drug plan, you get a document about your plan. On Original Medicare, you get a book about the programme. Different envelopes, same month. Neither looks urgent from the outside.
I should have said so in the letter rather than the day after.
Number of the week
Eighteen
Days between today and 30 September. That's the deadline in the regulation for your plan's notice to reach you. If it hasn't come by then, it's worth a phone call rather than a shrug. The plan is required to get it to you, not merely to post it.
After that, 15 October opens and 7 December closes. Whatever stands on 8 December is what you have in January.
One question
What actually arrived in your post this week?
I'm asking because I want to know whether these envelopes turn up looking like anything at all, or whether they sit in the pile with the rest. If you kept one, tell me what was printed on the outside.
Hit reply. I read them.
Wendell
"Medicare & You" handbook: what it is and when it arrives · Medicare.gov, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services