Hi everyone Lindsay here with Elite Insurance Partners and MedicareFAQ.com. Thank you so much for joining us today. If it's your first time welcome. Today, we're going to try and clarify some confusion around a specific enrollment period for Medicare, that's the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period.

Previously you may have heard of this enrollment period referred to as the Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period. Before, this enrollment period ran annually between January 1st and February 14th, and you could do exactly what it was said, which was disenroll from a Medicare Advantage plan. However, the legislation decided to discontinue this back in 2010.

Unfortunately, this was causing a lot of issues for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. Normally if they had enrolled during the Annual Enrollment Period, which runs between October and December.

Then the New Year came in January, and they went to go use their new benefits and ended up finding out that there was a lot of unexpected out-of-pocket costs that they weren't prepared for, or maybe they went to go see their doctor, and the doctor was not in the plans Network. So, unfortunately, since there was no more Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period, they were stuck in that plan until the next annual enrollment period.

Well, as of 2019, legislation decided to bring it back and rename it. It is now called the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period, and it runs annually between January 1st and March 31st. Now, this enrollment period is only for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. So if you are not currently enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, you cannot make any changes at this time.

Coverage will start the first day of the following month after you enroll. For example, if you enrolled February 10th, your coverage would start March 1st. Now an important difference between the Annual Enrollment Period and this Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period is that during this one, you can only make one change. During the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period, you can make multiple changes, and the last change is what would take effect. With this one, you can only make one change, so choose wisely.

Now, let's go over what you can and cannot do. You can switch from one Medicare Advantage plan to another. You can switch from one Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plan to another. And you can disenroll from your current Medicare Advantage plan and go back to Original Medicare.

And at that point, if you choose to do so, you can enroll in a stand-alone Prescription Drug plan and a Medigap plan. What you cannot do. You cannot enroll in Part A and Part B, and you cannot switch from one Part D plan to another Part D plan at this time. It is only for making changes to your Medicare Advantage plan.

We know how confusing all of these enrollment periods can be. Today, I hope we helped clarify any confusion around the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them below.

If you haven't already joined our Medicare Facebook Community, make sure to do so. We post new videos and content regularly to keep you updated informed on all your Medicare benefits. You can also post questions to the community that other beneficiaries can help answer, and you can also read about their experiences. Until next time. Bye!