The Medicare mail flood is starting. Most of it can wait.

If you have Medicare, or you will this year, September is when the mailbox stops being a mailbox. It becomes a pile.

Thick envelopes. Urgent postcards. Logos that look official until you squint. I have sat at kitchen tables in Henderson with people who thought they had to call somebody that night. They did not.

This is the calm filter: what is actually from Medicare or your current plan, what is a sales pitch, and what to do with the pile before October 15.

Make three piles

Keep and read: mail from Medicare, Social Security, or the plan you already have. Annual Notice of Change. Evidence of Coverage. Anything that confirms who you are or what you already pay. If the return address is your current plan or Medicare.gov, it is not junk.

Optional: education from a broker or from your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) — free counseling funded by the government. In Nevada that is Nevada SHIP. Appointment offers with no plan prices and no “call before Friday” can sit until you have twenty quiet minutes.

Sales: anything that names a plan, a premium, extra benefits, or a deadline that is not the federal window. You will not lose coverage because you ignored a postcard.

The date that is real

Annual Enrollment runs October 15 through December 7. Changes start January 1. That window does not move because a flyer said “this week only.”

Turning 65 is a different clock: seven months around your birthday. Do not mix “I am new” mail with “I already have Medicare” mail.

What I tell people not to do

Do not enroll from a postcard. Do not give a Medicare number, Social Security number, or bank info to a number you did not dial. A “local office” on a flyer is not Medicare. Guardian Benefits Group is an independent brokerage in Henderson. We are not the government, and we are not affiliated with Medicare.

If you kept the official letters and still cannot tell whether your doctors, drugs, or costs are about to change, that is a review. Bring the ANOC if you have it. I will sort the pile. Medicare reviews run about 30 minutes. You will not get a phone call unless you ask for one.

ANOC is not the same pile as sales

Late September, a thicker envelope often arrives from the plan you already have. That is usually the Annual Notice of Change. Plans have to tell you what will be different on January 1. If it goes out with the postcards, you are picking next year with last year’s assumptions.

Read it for doctors, drugs, and rules you actually use. Ignore the marketing voice. If it is vague, that is a reason to review — not a reason to call the first 800 number on a flyer. Doing nothing during AEP generally keeps you in the same plan with the new year’s rules. Fine when the letter matches your care. A problem when it does not and you find out at the pharmacy in January.

I will not put a ticking clock on this page. The federal window is printed in plain text at the top. Urgency mail is the thing this article tells you to recycle.

How this connects to a review

AEP is when you can change Advantage or Part D. You can also stay. The review is: doctors, drugs, ANOC, other coverage (VA, employer, spouse). I will not list premiums here. Those are county- and plan-specific and they go stale in a blog post.

Scope of Appointment still applies if we discuss Advantage or Part D in a personal appointment. For plan year 2027 there is no required waiting period after you sign it. Booking is not enrollment.

More on the window: medicare.gov open enrollment.

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