Medicare special election periods
Anyone that is currently enrolled in Medicare or that will be soon should be familiar withe Medicare special election periods. The information in this post will explain about the Medicare special election periods. Special election periods pertain to Medicare Advantage and Medicare stand alone part D rx plans.
Medicare special election periods for MAPD and Part D Rx plans
- You’re limited in when and how often you can join, change or leave a Medicare Advantage Plan (also known as a Managed Medicare plan or Medicare part C) or drug plan (Part D).
- You can enroll in a Medicare Advantage or Part D plan during the initial period when you first qualify for Medicare. (3 months before, the month of and 3 months after you are eligible for Medicare parts A and B.
- During the first 45 days of each year (the Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period, called the MADP, January 1 through February 14), you can leave your Medicare Advantage Plan and change to Original Medicare with or without also selecting a separate stand-alone Medicare drug plan. Please note: You can’t make any changes to your coverage during this period
if you have Original Medicare. You also can’t switch from one Medicare Advantage Plan to another during this period. - During Fall Open Enrollment, October 15 through December 7 of each year, you can change how you get your Medicare health coverage and enroll in, change or drop Medicare drug coverage.
- Outside of the above three periods, you can only change how you get your health coverage and enroll in, change or drop Part D drug coverage if you qualify for a Special Enrollment Period (SEP).
The link below will list all the Medicare special election periods. Some notable ones to pay special attention to are the SEP for moving out of the service area, losing group/employer coverage or losing or gaining prescription drug assistance and the MAPD Trial Right.