You are offered benefits from your job
It happens all the time. Employers offer their employees medical benefits. Which is a great perk to have! The employee stays with the company for years. Every year the medical insurance benefits renew and the employee is handed a new medical insurance card. If they have not used their medical insurance then they probably don’t really know what benefit they have. When I mean benefit I mean who is the insurance carrier, what is the network of doctors they have, what are the co-pays, deductibles and so on.
Retirement
The employee decides to retire. They are turning 65 in the next few months and to their surprise at home comes all the direct mail. The employee is bombarded with phone calls and mail. These are all solicitations for the now retired employee to buy the “best” plan. So the retired employee overwhelmed responds to one of the mailers to enroll in a plan. Having made no real medical insurance purchase before the retired employee simply wants all the mail and calls to stop so they enroll in a plan.
Confusion
This is an all to common issue facing retirees. They have no real knowledge of their current medical plan let alone a plan offered to them when they enroll in Medicare. The retired employee thinks they did the right thing by enrolling in a plan. Then a year or two later the they find either their doctor or hospital system that participated upon the inception of the plan no longer participates. The 800 number they called never shared this information with them and now the retired employee can’t get anyone on the phone to answer their questions.
Education
It is important for employers to educate regardless if their employees are going to retire at age 65 or continue to work. Going through the steps will create clarity for the employee and basic knowledge that they will need to use in the future when they do retire.
