Inheritance Planning Made 123Easy

Our website got a new look this week, and so did the two voices from our podcast. Eddie and Betty now live in 1950s pen and ink: on americanretirementadvisors.com, in a new library of one-page guides at the office, and starting now, right here in these articles. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/meet-the-new-eddie-and-betty/ American Retirement Advisors helps famil...

All week we read the 2027 plan letters line by line. Here is the whole series in one place: the deductible, the worst-case year, your drugs, your doctors, and the extras, with five days to go before October 15. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/five-things-your-plan-letter-wont-tell-you/ American Retirement Advisors helps families in Arizona and Nevada navigate hea...

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 5. Dental, vision, and hearing are the extras people notice first, and the plan letter rarely shows their limits. On Medicare.gov, the dental flag read 'not specified' for every plan we pulled. Where the real limits live, and why the extras belong last on your list, not first. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/wll-what-do-...

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 4. The plan letter can say the network changed. It cannot say whether your doctor left. And as of October 4, Medicare.gov still had no 2027 doctor information loaded for any of Maricopa's 52 standard Advantage plans. How to check, and the one phone call that settles it. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/wll-is-your-doctor-still...

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 3. The plan letter can list changes to the drug list. It cannot tell you what your own prescriptions will cost at your own pharmacy in 2027. Fewer stand-alone drug plans in Maricopa, a $700 deductible ceiling, a $2,400 cap, and the ten-minute search that answers it. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/wll-is-your-drug-plan-still-the-r...

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 2. The plan letter lists an out-of-pocket maximum. It does not add up what a bad year costs you all in: the premium, Part B, the medical limit, and the drug cap. An engineer does the arithmetic with 2026 and 2027 numbers, for both paths through Medicare. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/wll-whats-your-worst-case-year/ American Reti...

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 1. The plan letter is supposed to show what changed, and this week we read one that did not show either deductible. For 2027, more Advantage plans in Maricopa have a medical deductible, and drug deductibles can reach $700. Where to find your real numbers before October 15. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/wll-did-your-plan-add-a-de...

Healthcare in Retirement. Since the 2027 plans went live on October 1, our team has pulled every plan in Scottsdale and Las Vegas to get ready for next week's client workshops. More deductibles, higher out-of-pocket limits, a $700 drug deductible cap, and what Medicare.gov cannot show yet. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/hir-what-we-learned-when-the-2027-pla...

Take-Home Notes. What yesterday's Medicare workshops taught us. People holding their plan letter still had not caught that things were changing, Medicare.gov is not showing doctor matches for 2027 yet, and the numbers on the screen only help if you know what each one means. Here is what each one means. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/thn-a-bigger-number-is-n...

Take-Home Notes, part 5. The workshop's last section sorts the room into three groups: not on Medicare yet, on an Advantage plan, or on a Supplement with a drug plan. What each group does this fall, the six questions to ask anyone who offers to help, and every section of the show in print, in one place. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/thn-which-one-are-you-n...

Take-Home Notes, part 4. This morning Medicare.gov switched to 2027 plans, and the workshop's live demo walks the search click by click. How to search drug plans and Advantage plans, the notes-sheet grid, what the little tooth means, and what the site does not show yet on day one. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/thn-medicare-gov-live-how-to-search-2027-plans...

Take-Home Notes, part 3. Plan letters are due today, and the workshop's calendar slide answers the next question: which Medicare window is yours, what you can change between October 15 and December 7, what happens if you do nothing, and the one change you can apply for any month of the year. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/thn-your-plan-letter-came-what-can-...

Take-Home Notes, part 2. Copay, deductible, network, and maximum out-of-pocket. The workshop defines these four before anything else, and each one is hiding in the plan letter on your counter. What each means in Medicare's own words, the 2027 numbers, and the one that surprises people most. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/thn-which-four-words-decide-your-med...

Take-Home Notes, part 1. The workshop's opening section, in print. Medicare starts with one foundation, there are five ways to build on it, and most people end up on one of two paths. Plus why your mailbox is full: hundreds of companies sell the exact same Supplement plans. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/thn-which-of-medicares-two-paths-are-you-on/ American...

Healthcare in Retirement. Eighteen tricky Medicare situations on one page, sorted by what is going on in your life: still working, served, a letter in the mail, a clock running, a surprise bill, two addresses, AI, and the phone. Find yours, then send the right one to someone who needs it. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/hir-which-medicare-situation-is-yours/ Amer...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 18. Your plan's Annual Notice of Change arrives by September 30, and an AI assistant is good at reading it with you. Here are five prompts to type in order, the privacy rule that comes first, and the three places no assistant can judge. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/hir-can-an-ai-read-my-annual-notice-of-change/ American Reti...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 17. Open Enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, and the calls come with it. Medicare says it will never call to sell you anything, and federal rules bar cold calls from plans and agents. Who is really allowed to call, what the common scams sound like, and the two sentences I say before I hang up. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/h...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 16. At a company with fewer than 20 employees, Medicare pays first and the work plan pays second. That flips the Part B decision: skipping it risks bills the plan might not pay, not a penalty. How Medicare counts to 20, the association-plan trap, the paperwork, and the arithmetic. Read the full article: https://news.americanretirementadvisors.com/hir-still-working-at...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 15. A federal pilot called WISeR now runs prior authorization for a short list of services in Original Medicare in six states, Arizona among them, through 2031. The government says a human clinician must review every denial and that decisions cannot be made by technology alone. Records obtained in September show at least one request sat 83 days against a 72-hour stan...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 14. An engineer's list. Some Medicare facts are not public yet, some are public but only county by county or state by state, and some exist only in your own file. A good AI assistant cannot know any of them, and the difference between a good one and a dangerous one is whether it says so. Here are the seven, the source for each, and a penalty table where one colu...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 13. It makes up sources. It gets things wrong. It argues. I hear all three from people who tried an AI assistant once or twice and put it down. Each complaint was true of the tool they were holding. Here is what has changed since, with dates, what has not, and a one-minute test for each that you can run on your own phone before you ever ask it about Medicare. Read th...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 12. Medicare Advantage is a county product. Leave the plan's service area for more than six months and the rules say the plan must drop you, with no replacement window waiting. Move for real and two doors open. Here is the regulation, the visitor exception some plans offer, what happens to a routine doctor visit in the other state, and how Original Medicare and...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 11. Military retirees get coverage with no enrollment and no premium of its own, and it pays what Medicare leaves behind. In return for a career, that is right. But it rides on Part B, and Part B is the bill. The four ways a claim pays, why you do not need a drug plan, what happens if you join an Advantage plan anyway, and what happens overseas. Read the full article...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 10. You can sleep three nights in a hospital, in a gown, with a wristband, and be an outpatient the whole time. Then the rehab bill arrives. Here is the rule that makes that possible, the form the hospital must give you, the one question to ask while you are still in the bed, and the arithmetic: the same 25-day rehab stay, covered versus not, and the break-even that...

Healthcare in Retirement, part 9. Medicare's own words: preferred pharmacies may save you money because they have agreed to charge less than other pharmacies in your plan's network. Same drug, same plan, two prices. Here is the arithmetic on three prescriptions at two counters, when mail order wins and when it does not, the cash-price rule, and how to check your pharmacy for 2027 before...