With the yearly increase in price, albeit a small one, here is how to cut Medicare Costs in 2021.
With Medicare Parts B and D, the more income you bring in, the higher premium you will pay in 2021. The government calls this an Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount or IRMAA.
For individuals making $88,000 or less, a monthly premium payment would be around $148.50. However, once that $88,000 threshold is passed, the payments increase almost $60 a month to $207.90. There are five tiers of IRMAA’s, the highest being the $500,000 or more yearly income, in which case the person would be making a payment of $504.90 per month for Part B. However, there are ways to get the IRMAA waived from your monthly payment due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions it has placed on the population.
If your 2019 tax return is below the 2020 income thresholds, you may request an appeal to waive the IRMAA fees by the Social Security Administration. Various life events qualify as valid grounds to appeal, such as marriage, divorce, loss of pension, loss of job, or reduction in hours. For Part D, there are various ways to lower costs. The main avenue of doing so is lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Asking for a generic brand of the same drug you are currently taking, using mail-order pharmacies, or additional extra help based on income according to Medicare.gov are all ways of lowering the costs of prescriptions, which can become costly.
Medicare Advantage plans are seeing a decrease in cost this year, from around $24 in 2020 to $21 in the coming year. Advantage plans could provide rebates for that coverage, depending on the plan. However, MedAdvantage plans come with an out-of-pocket maximum, unlike basic Medicare coverage. Those costs can get up to $7,500 before the plan will cover 100% of the services offered in your plan’s network.
Coming out of one of the toughest economic years in history, hopefully, some of these tips can help save a few dollars a month on your medical coverage and give people some peace of mind knowing that they are taken care of.
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