Retirement: More Medicare and Corning RRA Information

Corning retiree Nina B. sent me a note today that confirmed something for me, so passing it along. To get reimbursements from the Corning RRA, you must sign up for a "Corning connector" plan version of a AARP/UHC Medicare supplement plan, or their Advantage plan. You do not need to sign up for a "Corning connector" Medicare Part D drug plan. You can shop the open marketplace for a Part D plan via Medicare.gov.

If your AARP/UHC Medicare supplement plan premiums do not exceed your yearly Corning RRA limit, you can submit forms with proof of your Medicare part B premiums for RRA reimbursement.

This is especially important right now for Medicare folks because it's annual enrollment time for Medicare Part D.

Here's Nina's note:

"I cannot find your most recent email, even though I saw it come across my notification screen. It may not be important because I may have already weighed in on this, but I wanted to point out to people during the open enrollment something I learned when I was signing up for my Medicare supplemental insurance.

I wanted to take advantage of the money that Corning would reimburse you if you signed up for your supplemental package through their marketplace, which was basically a UHC limited marketplace. I don't even think when I signed up I was on any prescription medication, so when I looked at the premiums for the UHC marketplace Part D for prescriptions and ran the numbers on what it would cost me if I signed up late and had to pay the penalty yada yada, I had decided I wasn't going to sign up.

When I spoke to the UHC rep, she wasn't a fan of that plan and she looked into the rules, and she came back and told me I did not need to sign up for part D with UHC in order to capture the Corning money. She recommended that I go to Medicare.gov and find a zero premium prescription plan and sign up for it.

I took her advice. I ended up with zero dollar premium for my drug benefits and only paid the premium for my supplemental medical benefit to UHC. And I still got the Corning money. Since then, I have gone on a prescription drug for blood pressure, but it's very low cost and I'm not even sure what I'm paying for it. It's that low cost."