Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - You have until Sunday to decide on your Medicare enrollment plan for 2026, which means if you haven't done it yet stop what you're doing and get on it. A health care consultant admits it's challenging to navigate the system, but says participants need to take the time required to find the right plan.
Dr. Mehmet Oz says it's important to complete the enrollment by Sunday, but maybe more important to do it sooner. "I would not wait till Sunday," advises Dr. Oz. "You may be busy that day, but more importantly, it gets caught up in stuff, and you lose the opportunity to customize the Medicare program that benefits you the most."
Why is it important not to wait until the last minute? Dr. Oz says life gets hectic and busy and it's too easy to miss an important deadline by waiting until the last second.
"We have different challenges. From a health perspective, we are on different medications, maybe different doctors, and so the Medicare plan you're on last year may not be the best one for you next year, plus Medicare itself changes, right? We negotiated some really good prices for medications, so the drug prices are less in the plan this year, but we're paying more for other things. So if you don't go in there and double check that what's out there is in your best interest, you're throwing money away."
Oz warns if you miss the deadline, you may not be able to get back in until 2027 to change your plan. "They'll be throwing money away because we don't have the flexibility to allow people to change their Medicare plans," notes Oz. "Open Enrollment is a time when you'll notice all the advertisements coming out there from private companies trying to get your business as well. We don't spend as much money advertising to you, but we get to hear from yours truly on radio programs trying to get folks, cajoling people to just sign up so they can make sure that they're getting the best bang for their buck."
Oz says the crown jewel of Medicare was created 60 years ago to make sure that no one followed the cracks and he has that job today.
Healthcare Consultant John Bartimole admits the process is complicated. "I have a friend of mine who describes confusing situations as trying to navigate in open water, where all you see is water. I think some people, when it comes to this point in the insurance choice portion of our lives, all they see is open water, but there really is a way to navigate through it and to figure out what is best for you," says Bartimole.
How to decide what you need? Bartimole says the first step is to review the insurance you have now.
"In my case, we had a great insurance plan, and then they eliminated it, so we had to look for another one. But if you're happy with what you have now, and you check with the plan and they're not making any substantive changes or increasing your out of pocket, or increasing your co pays or your premium, you might be better off staying with that plan. But if there's a glitch, if you're not happy with the coverage, there are options out there, and there are ways to evaluate those options, some of them objective too," notes Bartimole.
He says if you do nothing, you'll have the same plan as last year. "Silence is tantamount to agreeing to stay with the current plan, which could have changed in a big way depending on what plan that is," notes Bartimole. But if you choose a plan, and don't like it, you're not necessarily stuck with it.
"Even if you change plans, you've got a three month grace period from January 1 on to change again, for whatever reason that is built into the system. Secondly, let's say something catastrophic does happen. And I'll use an example that could be true for many people. God forbid you are diagnosed with cancer, and you have to go to Roswell. And for some reason, Roswell is not covered by your insurance plan. You can change, at that point that's a mitigating factor. You can change to an insurance plan that does include Roswell.
"So yeah, you're locked in for a year, and no one can tell if you're going to break a leg in August or get pneumonia in November. So what you have to do is go with the plan that seems to cover everything you're going to need, which, again, none of us are Nostradamus, but we do the best we can," explains Bartimole.
The deadline is Sunday.