Your Personal Medicare Account

As a continuation of our Medicare series, I just realized that I haven't mentioned a very useful Medicare resource for both computer-savvy Medicare recipients and their responsible caregivers.

It's My Medicare.

Especially for caregivers who live distant and who can't be there as often as you'd like, this personal Medicare website will help you keep up with all kinds of things. Once you're on the MyMedicare.gov website you can:

•  Review the status of individual claims paid to medical providers or as reimbursement to the policy holder (except Part D);

•  Check information about plan enrollment (name of the carrier, date enrolled, carrier contact information)
including prescription drug plans. Especially helpful if you want to see if any changes have gone through;

•  Order a duplicate Medicare Summary Notice (MSN) or a replacement Medicare card;

•  Check where the recipient is with regard to meeting annual deductibles;

•  Check eligibility for particular preventive services;

• And a bunch of other stuff.

Getting things set up can be more than a little confusing, and will probably be way beyond any older person who is not very comfortable using the 'Net and all that entails: registering, checking email for passwords, signing in again, changing temporary passwords, etc. I understand the reason for hyper-security, but it makes the site near impossible - even downright terrifying - for many older people to use.

You, on the other hand, will be able to muddle your way through (you're reading this, aren't you?). You can sign your elder up and have internet access to this invaluable information fairly easily if you take your time.

Just make sure you keep track of your passwords!!! It's MyMedicare.gov