When Is Medicare Open Enrollment, and What Can I Change?

October 15 through December 7. Anything you change takes effect January 1.

That's the same window every year. It's called Open Enrollment, and you'll hear agents call it AEP or the Annual Enrollment Period. Same thing.

01What happens if I do nothing?

Your coverage continues automatically. According to Medicare.gov, “If you've reviewed your options and you're happy with your current coverage, you don't need to do anything (your coverage will continue automatically).”

That sentence assumes you reviewed your options first. Reviewing is the part that gets skipped.

02What can I change in the window?

Medicare.gov lists four moves you can make between October 15 and December 7:

• Join, drop, or switch a Medicare Advantage plan
• Join, drop, or switch a drug plan, if you're on Original Medicare
• Switch between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage
• Add or drop drug coverage

Your request has to be in by December 7. Coverage starts January 1.

03What is the letter that comes in September?

If you're in a Medicare Advantage plan or a drug plan, your plan mails you an Annual Notice of Change every fall. It lists what's changing in January.

The letter arrives in September, a few weeks before the window opens. The timing is on purpose.

Most of them go straight in the trash with the grocery flyers. Keep yours. It's the one document that tells you whether what you have in December is what you'll have in January.

04Is this how I first sign up for Medicare?

No. Open Enrollment is for people who already have Medicare and want to change how they get it.

If you're turning 65 and signing up for the first time, that's your Initial Enrollment Period, a 7-month window built around your birthday month. There's more on that in the post on signing up at 65 while you're still working.

If you missed that one and you're signing up late, the General Enrollment Period runs January 1 through March 31.

Three different windows with three different sets of rules. Being inside one doesn't put you inside another.

05What doesn't this window cover?

Medicare Supplement policies run on a separate set of rules with their own timing. Open Enrollment doesn't govern them.

And if December 7 gets past you, there's one limited second chance. The Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period runs January 1 through March 31, and it's only for people already enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan.

In that window you can switch to a different Advantage plan or go back to Original Medicare. One change, and Medicare.gov is specific that it doesn't run the other direction. You can't use it to leave Original Medicare for an Advantage plan.

Coverage from a January-to-March change starts the first of the month after your request goes through, not January 1.

Not sure how this applies to your own situation? I'll walk through it with you. No cost for the help, and no obligation to enroll.

Logan Cope · Licensed Insurance Agent

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06What to do next

1. Watch for the Annual Notice of Change in September and set it somewhere you'll find it again.
2. Think about what changed on your end this year. A new prescription, a new doctor, a move.
3. Write out your current medications and your doctors before the window opens. That one list makes every conversation afterward faster.
4. If something in that letter doesn't match what you thought you had, ask somebody before December 7 rather than after.

That last one matters most. The January phone calls almost always trace back to a letter that never got opened in September.

The window is federal. October 15 is October 15 in Hawkins County, in East Tennessee and West Tennessee, in Virginia and North Carolina, and everywhere else in the country.

What's local is who sits down and goes through it with you. For me that's Rogersville and the counties around it.

The dates and rules above come from Medicare.gov and from the CMS publication Understanding Medicare Advantage & Medicare Drug Plan Enrollment Periods.