The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Medicare for You – Diane Omdahl

05.28.2023 - By Retirement WisdomPlay

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Some things are not as easy as you may think. And discerning the right Medicare choices for you is one of those things. When preparing to enroll in Medicare, or evaluating your coverage, it pays to look past the commercials, do your homework - and to read the fine print. When I researched Medicare in 2022, I engaged Diane Omdahl and her service 65 Incorporated. She's written a new book Medicare for You: A Smart Person's Guide and joins us today to discuss some key things you need to know.

Diane Omdahl joins us from Wisconsin

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Bio

The author of Medicare for You: A Smart Person's Guide, Diane Omdahl, RN, MS., is a nationally recognized Medicare expert and the author of Medicare and You: A Smart Person’s Guide.

In 2012, she co-founded 65 Incorporated, a company that provides one-on-one consultations to individuals dealing with Medicare. Her first company, Beacon Health, provided homecare agencies with Medicare compliance guidance from 1987 until she sold it in 2008. Diane has served as a technical expert for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (the organization that runs the Medicare program) and is a frequent speaker on Medicare-related issues. In addition to being a registered nurse, Diane holds a Master’s degree in Health Services Administration. Diane is a Forbes.com contributor on the topic of Medicare and has been featured in many national publications including the Washington Post, CBS MoneyWatch, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal Market Watch, Kiplinger, and many others. You can learn more about Diane at www.65incorporated.com and www.dianeomdahl.com.

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For More on Diane Omdahl

Medicare for You: A Smart Person's Guide

65 Incorporated

i65 (Fiduciary Medicare Software & Consulting)

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Wise Quotes

On Setting Up Your My Social Security Account

".. a very important step that they can do at any time in their life is to set up a My Social Security Account. That is the way that they will enroll in Medicare when it's time. And we have run into people trying to enroll in Medicare who did not have an account. And it's not always easy to set up. And people who have an account haven't kept it up to date, they haven't informed Social Security of their address change. And after a divorce, women with a name change, that's quite involved. And with the Social Security offices just coming back out from Covid, many of them are still not open completely. If you have to submit documents, you don't want to send originals in the mail. And so that's what we say, keep it up to date. Then when you're actually approaching 65, you can't do anything until your initial enrollment period, which is three months before your birthday, unless it's on the first of the month and it's four months. But people like to start about six months in advance. Given they're getting all of the advertising even earlier than that, we tell them that's when you should start thinking about it. And one of our best pieces of advice is that they can  toss out that stuff they get prior to age 65 because as they get closer and know what they need, then they can look for the specific information that will wor...

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