Dear Toni,
As a retired Texas teacher …. I decided to stay on my husband’s insurance some 25 years ago when I retired. Fine, TRS said I would never be able to join again. So, I stayed with the TRS Care 2 Aetna group plan to remain on Original Medicare and use my husband’s retiree insurance.
Well, without notification they enrolled me in TRS Medicare Advantage plan that automatically cancelling my good insurance from my husband’s company. Cannot believe that TRS changed my Medicare to a Medicare advantage plan. I have to get it changed and yes this has been a nightmare.
Called the TRS Medicare Advantage plan and they said I would have to be mailed a lot of forms to fill out and return to TRS. They informed me that it would probably be February before I am disenrolled in a plan I never personally enrolled in and return to Original Medicare and use my husband’s retiree insurance.
I am a senior and need good doctors …. good doctors do not take this Medicare Advantage plan in Houston! I never signed anything …. where is my freedom of choice!? I am livid!!! Can you please explain what one can do to make this process simpler?
Josie, Pearland, TX
Josie:
To make this process simple for those wanting to leave the TRS Medicare Advantage plan, you must call TRS Health & Insurance Benefits at 1-888-237-6762 and request a TRS cancellation form. Because you did not return the cancellation form to TRS, you are now enrolled in the TRS Medicare Advantage plan. This is what happened to you, Josie.
During many TRS Retiree Medicare consultations in the past few weeks, the Toni Says® Medicare team members have noticed serious discrepancies from the TRS Austin home office. Those who wish to leave the TRS Retiree Medicare plan and have already mailed their forms to TRS in Austin have been advised via information from TRS that their cancellation letters will not be mailed to the retiree until the last week in December or beginning of January
In the December 7th edition of “My Statesman” newspaper, reporter Julie Chang wrote about problems with leaving TRS and that “in November, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid did not receive from TRS or its vendors certain information about the thousands of teachers who want out of TRS.”
Toni Says® Medicare agents are helping TRS Retirees who have applied for a Medicare Supplement and standalone Medicare Part D plans only to have plans cancelled because Medicare believes that these retirees have enrolled in the TRS Medicare Advantage program because TRS did not scrub the TRS retiree list with what retirees had already mailed in their notarized cancellation form for themselves and their spouses.
To be honest with my readers, I, Toni King am very concerned about how TRS is disenrolling the TRS retirees because I know Medicare rules. I am not confident that if one has cancelled out of the TRS Medicare plan and is not able to enroll in a standalone Medicare Part D plan or another Medicare Advantage plan that you will not have prescription drug coverage beginning January 1, 2018. I am advising all who have opted out of the TRS Retiree Medicare plan to now order a 90-day supply of their prescriptions to be sure you have your prescriptions for January until this problem is solved.
TRS Medicare Changes and How to Cancel Properly Webinar, Thursday, December 21and Wednesday December 27 at 2:00 PM CST. To register please call 832-519-8664 or visit www.tonisays.com under webinar tab.
