It’s November! It’s hard to believe, but open enrollment has begun. And an interesting change to open enrollment is that it will not end on December 15th. Open enrollment is going to go through January 15th this year. We have an extra 30 days. So what does that mean to you?

Essentially, this means that you should still make an appointment with me sooner rather than later. This is to ensure that your choices are selected and entered before December 31st, meaning that you will have coverage effective January 1st. If you wait until January to do this, since you’ll have until the 15th, your coverage will not be effective until February 1st.

So that’s very important. Remember, the subsidies that are in place will still be valid through the end of 2022. You should know at this point what your income was for 2021, and hopefully, we can estimate your income for 2022. It’s very, very important that we estimate that as close as possible to your income because that will determine how much your subsidy is.

If you understate your income, then you could owe some of this subsidy money back. If you overstate your income, you may get a refund but overall it may affect you’re getting a subsidy as well. So the key point to remember is to make sure we get your income level accurate.

Another key point is to use an agent that’s certified in the Marketplace. I recently just received an accolade from the Marketplace since I have helped enough people during this special enrollment period. That means I’m going to be able to help more people this open enrollment period, because of my status. I am able to help people in multiple states that I’m licensed in, which is about 18 states in total. If you have a family member or friend that lives in another state, where that state does not have its own exchange, then I can help them obtain Marketplace.

Remember, my services are of no cost to you or to anyone you refer to me. This is something that’s very important because you can have an advocate. If you go out in the Marketplace alone, you’re going to get 900 emails and phone calls from different people. If you call me, without going into the Marketplace, then you will not get all that spam information. You will still get notices from the Marketplace about picking your plan and paying your premium, but I do not spam people. I do not sell your, your information. I keep your information and my personal records private. You’ll only see newsletters from me once a week. That’s about it. And you can unsubscribe from that if you don’t want it. But I do put out a lot of useful information on tips and tricks for saving money on healthcare.

I would love for you to make an appointment with me so we can go through what your Marketplace choices are. There are new plans in the open enrollment this year, including Aetna and United Healthcare, and Cigna is available in certain states.

If you need dental or vision plans, I can help with that. With VSP for example, there’s a great individual program for VSP, where you don’t have to get that through your employer. I’ll talk more about that in future blogs.

Remember you need to make use of the open enrollment period. Once that enrollment period ends, you will have to wait until the next open enrollment period to enroll. Unless you have a qualifying life event. Qualifying life events include marriage divorce, the birth of a child, death of an immediate family member or your tax, household income changes due to a loss of a job, or loss of medical coverage due to losing your job.

You can schedule an appointment with me on my website, to review what coverages are available to you. And I will ensure that you pick the best plan that’s available for you.