Here’s something you should know about Medicare Advantage plans: the vast majority of these insurance policies require prior approval before a person can receive some medical treatments and services. Historically, that was not the case, and prior authorizations are still very unusual for people who are enrolled in original Medicare and a Medigap supplement. But […]

I recently retired and found my productivity quickly went from 110% to barely hitting 8% on a good day. In all fairness, I contracted COVID two days after packing up my desk and spent the next four in bed. The first time I had COVID in December of 2020, before I was eligible for a […]

This is a fact of retirement life: older Americans haven’t paid as much into Medicare and Medicaid as government spends on their healthcare and nursing home stays. But it is middle-class retirees who get the most out of the system, according to a new study. Middle-income households receive about $230,000 to $260,000 more in Medicare […]

Anyone who has lived paycheck to paycheck is familiar with the headache of overdraft charges. Due to a slight miscalculation at the end of a tough month, there isn’t enough money in the account to cover a check. The bank pays the check but charges an overdraft fee that drains money out of the account. […]

The purpose of the 2020 restrictions on older people’s activities during COVID – whether voluntary or government enforced – were crucial: keeping them alive as the deadly Delta variant raced through the population worldwide. But saving lives came at the cost of grandparents’ mental health, according to a study in the Journal of Gerontology: Social […]

San Francisco is caught in the vortex of two powerful forces: a fast-growing retiree population and rising rents. Residents over 60 are expected to make up a fourth of the city’s residents by 2030, according to this video project for The San Francisco Standard by Chris Chang, a student in the University of California, Berkeley’s […]