Medicare Notes for the St. Louis metro

• Enrollment6 min read

  What St. Louis seniors should do before December 7

  Annual Open Enrollment closes December 7. Here's the short review that catches most of the money, your Annual Notice of Change, your drug list, and next year's network.

• Plan types7 min read

  HMO or PPO? What the difference means at Barnes-Jewish and Mercy

  Network rules decide whether your specialist visit is covered. A practical look at how HMO and PPO Advantage plans behave with St. Louis's two big hospital systems.

• Prescriptions5 min read

  Why the cheapest Part D plan is usually the wrong one

  Premium is the least important number in a drug plan. Tiers, formularies and preferred pharmacies are where the real annual cost lives.

• Medigap6 min read

  Plan G vs. Plan N: which one actually saves you money?

  The benefits are standardized, so the decision comes down to premium versus copays. We run the comparison the way we'd run it for a client.

• Turning 658 min read

  The 65th-birthday timeline nobody explains clearly

  Seven months, one Medigap window, and one very expensive mistake if you're still working. A month-by-month plan for getting it right.

• Costly errors7 min read

  Seven Medicare mistakes we fix every single year

  Missed deadlines, TV-ad enrollments and set-and-forget coverage. Most of these are permanent, and all of them are avoidable.

Looking for something specific? Try the Medicare FAQs or the Medicare checklist.