Older adults and people with disabilities who are currently enrolled in a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan have until March 31 to switch to another MA plan or to Original Medicare with or without a stand-alone prescription drug plan (Part D) during the new Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (MA OEP).

The MA OEP occurs each year from January 1 through March 31, and it is only available to people who have a Medicare Advantage plan. One change can be made during this period, which will take effect the first of the month following the month you enroll. For example, if you switch to a new Medicare Advantage Plan in February, your new coverage begins March 1.

Fall Open Enrollment is the time of year from October 15 through December 7 when you can change your Medicare coverage. You can join a new Medicare Advantage Plan or stand-alone prescription drug plan (Part D) plan. You can also switch between Original Medicare with or without a Part D plan and Medicare Advantage

Here are six things to keep in mind while you are choosing your Medicare coverage:

This summer, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees the Medicare program, released a draft version of the annual “Medicare & You” Handbook that contained several glaring inaccuracies that alarmed advocates, including Medicare Rights. The agency recently released the final 2019 Handbook, which addresses many of our concerns.

The handbook is an official government publication that is designed to provide people with Medicare with information about the Medicare program, their choices for obtaining coverage, and the benefits they can expect. Distributed to millions of homes each year, it is one of CMS’s most widely accessed resources among people with Medicare.

Efforts are underway right now to roll back critical reforms to the Medicare Part D donut hole, or coverage gap, that help reduce out-of-pocket costs for people with Medicare, especially those who face the highest prescription drug costs. We need your help! Ask your Members of Congress to maintain the Part D donut hole changes that will improve the health and economic security of people with Medicare and their families.

People with Medicare face significant health risks because they do not have access to medically necessary dental care. There is an ongoing effort to urge CMS to use their existing administrative authority to allow this coverage, and we need your help!

Ask your members of Congress to sign on to letters asking CMS to provide Medicare coverage for medically necessary dental care, as authorized by law.

This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expanded the time-limited equitable relief opportunity to people who are enrolled in Marketplace plans but could have enrolled in Medicare Part B during their Special Enrollment Period (SEP), which was available to them after they lost their or a spouse’s job-based insurance.

The report, Medicare Trends and Recommendations: An Analysis of 2016 Call Data from the Medicare Rights Center’s National Helpline, re-examines the top three issues heard on Medicare Rights’ helpline in prior years. Each issue is demonstrated through clients’ stories heard on the helpline, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), state agencies, insurers, elected officials, and other stakeholders can use as a basis to strengthen the Medicare program for the more than 58 million people it serves.

A bipartisan bill reintroduced in Congress—the Beneficiary Enrollment Notification and Eligibility Simplification (BENES) Act—would improve the Part B enrollment process. Through better notice, eliminating gaps in coverage during enrollment periods, and more, the BENES Act modernizes enrollment rules written when Medicare was created more than 50 years ago.

Medicare Rights strongly supports the BENES Act. Help us support this bill by writing to your members of Congress. Urge them to cosponsor the BENES Act and simplify the complicated and outdated Part B enrollment process.

This week, the Senate and the House are frantically working out the differences between the tax bill previously passed in the House and the Senate’s version that passed late last week.

Both bills would add over $1 trillion to the debt, putting our nation’s bedrock programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—in the cross-hairs of lawmakers who plan to use rising deficits as an excuse to “restructure” or “reform” these programs by gutting them.

Take action today. Write to your members of Congress, and tell them to put a stop to this deeply unpopular tax bill.

As families around the country prepare to gather with loved ones for the Thanksgiving holiday, the House passed a tax bill that would threaten the health and economic security of many low-income and middle-class families.

This Thanksgiving, talk turkey about taxes! It’s not too late to protect our health care and our families. Here’s what you can do: