Posted on June 08th, 2022

There are several changes for Medicare enrollees in 2022. Some of them apply to Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D, which are the plans that beneficiaries can change during the annual fall enrollment period that runs from October 15 to December 7. (Here’s our overview of everything you need to know about the annual enrollment period.)

But there are also changes to Original Medicare cost-sharing and premiums, the high-income brackets, and more.

The standard premium for Medicare Part B is $170.10/month in 2022. This is an increase of nearly $22/month over the standard 2021 premium, and is the largest dollar increase in the program’s history. But the 5.9% Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is also historically large, and will more than cover the increase in Part B premiums for beneficiaries who receive Social Security retirement benefits.

(If a Social Security recipient’s COLA isn’t enough to cover the full premium increase for Part B, that person’s Part B premium can only increase by the amount of the COLA. That’s because Part B premiums are withheld from Social Security checks, and net checks can’t decline from one year to the next. That will not be an issue in 2022, however, due to the size of the COLA.)

CMS noted that the significant Part B premium increase is due to several factors, including costs associated with COVID, uncertainty around potential spending increases due to Aduhelm (a new infusion medication for Alzheimer’s that, if approved by Medicare, would be covered under Part B), and the fact that 2021 premiums were lower than they would otherwise have been, due to a short-term spending bill enacted in 2020 that limited the Part B premium increase for 2021. Under the terms of the spending bill, the increase for 2021 was limited to 25 percent of what it would otherwise have been.

Original article: https://www.medicareresources.org/faqs/what-kind-of-medicare-benefit-changes-can-i-expect-this-year/