Medicare

When planning for healthcare in retirement, you may have come across the Medicare “Income-Related Monthly Adjusted Amount,” or “IRMAA” for short. It’s a fancy way of referring to the extra monthly premium amounts that you might pay on your Medicare Part B and Part D coverages.

Those extra monthly premium amounts are basically “surcharges” on your Medicare premiums, and they can apply to those with Standard Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans. Whether IRMAA applies to you and other Medicare beneficiaries is determined by your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) from two prior tax years.

While you obviously want to maximize your income in retirement, in some cases this can lead to those additional surcharges on your Medicare coverage. If your income exceeds a certain amount each year, then you may have to pay the monthly adjustment amount on top of any taxes that you owe.

This surcharge is also in addition to the monthly premiums that you will pay for Medicare Parts B and D, which cover doctor visits and prescription drug coverage. IRMAA can raise the cost of Medicare by hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year for those whose incomes are high enough.

It’s a big but little-known issue, to say the least. In this article, we will go over the basics of IRMAA, how it works with Medicare and retirement in general, and some possible strategies that can help keep them and other healthcare costs at bay.

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If you are at least 65 and aren’t covered by an employer health insurance plan, then you will probably need to enroll in Medicare.

Every year, there are copays, deductibles, and premiums to be paid. These numbers typically adjust from year to year, so you don’t have to be caught unprepared when they change this year in 2023.

Once again, Social Security recipients have been given a large COLA (cost of living adjustment) for their benefits, which can play into these updates here. Here are the critical numbers that are important to know regarding Medicare benefits in 2023.

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