Every fall from October 15 through December 7, Medicare’s Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) opens. It’s the one window each year where most Medicare beneficiaries can change plans — and it’s also the window where the most expensive mistakes get made, usually because people skip the review entirely.

What you can do during AEP

• Switch from Original Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan, or back the other way.
• Switch from one Medicare Advantage plan to another.
• Join, drop, or switch a Part D prescription drug plan.

What you cannot do during AEP is switch between Medigap (Medicare Supplement) plans without medical underwriting — that’s a different process with its own rules.

Why this matters every year, not just the year you turn 65

Even if your current plan worked perfectly last year, three things change every fall:

1. Your plan’s formulary — the list of drugs it covers, and what tier each drug is on. A medication that was $5 last year can become $80 this year.
2. The provider network — doctors and hospitals join and leave networks every year. Your favorite specialist may not be in-network in January.
3. Premiums, deductibles, and copays — carriers re-file rates every year.

A 5-minute self-check

You don’t need to do a deep review to know if a closer look is worth it. Run through these four questions:

1. Did I start any new prescriptions this year? If yes, are they still in my plan’s formulary at a tier I can afford?
2. Did any of my doctors change networks?
3. Did my total out-of-pocket cost for the year feel higher than it should have?
4. Did I get the Annual Notice of Change letter from my insurer? (It comes in September.) Are any of the changes meaningful?

If you said yes to any of those, set aside 30 minutes between now and December 7 to compare your current plan against what else is available in your ZIP code.

When the change takes effect

Anything you switch during AEP starts January 1 of the following year. So if you make a change on December 1, your old plan continues through December 31, and the new plan kicks in on January 1.

What to bring to the comparison

• Your current insurance card and plan name.
• Your current medication list, including dosage and frequency.
• The names of your primary care doctor and any specialists you see regularly.
• A rough sense of how often you typically use care — healthy and rarely sick? Three chronic conditions and weekly visits?

With those four pieces of information, a Medicare-licensed advisor can run a side-by-side comparison in about half an hour and tell you whether your current plan is still the right one.

If you’d like a no-cost AEP review, book a call and we’ll do the comparison together. We never charge for the review — carriers pay our commission either way, so we recommend whatever genuinely fits your situation.