25 minutes ago, kmealy said:

Medicare and SSA - who don't really talk to each other.

We have a friend who is the billing agent for a doctor's office. It's even worse than you imagine. When she calls medicare for a billing code question- they respond that they are not permitted to provide that information. She has to guess what code to use, if its right, they get paid, if not it is kicked back and she has to resubmit again- and again guess at the code. 

10 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

Same here, Tom. The guys/gals that had to collect the extra postage don't make the rules

 

10 hours ago, lew said:

Tom, I meant no disrespect of postal workers with my statement

OK.  Thank you both for that.  I guess I jumped too quickly.  I don't know what route these samples took, but sometimes the PO uses, or at least used to use, "contract" facilities that are not staffed by trained postal employees, but rather by employees of whatever business the contract facilities are located in.  Mistakes can and do happen much more frequently in this kind of a situation.  Maybe you heard of the beef between our union and Staples office supply stores over this exact issue.  I could go on, but I supposed John probably wants us to get back on topic.  Sorry about the "flare up". 

For those of you who are on, or will be on, Medicare, one of the pieces of advice my friend gave me was to file for spouses (and even a child or two) to have authority to talk to Medicare.  Otherwise, they won't tell you a thing or do anything, even though you have a medical power of attorney.

https://www.medicare.gov/MedicareOnlineForms/AuthorizationForm/OnlineFormStep.asp

Oh, another SSA story.   I went in last month to file for benefits.   After waiting for an hour, I get called to the desk and after a minute, the lady tells me I'll need to wait for another agent on the side.   15 minutes later, I get called back.  (In the meantime, another patron goes to the same lady and in a loud voice states his full name, date of birth, current address, and SSN for everyone in the waiting room to hear).   I get back to the other agent and he asks, "Do you have your marriage license?"   Well, no, I didn't know I'd need that, "Aren't 43 years of joint tax returns proof of marriage?"  

"No."

After some more time, he asks if my wife is at home.   No, but she has her phone with her.

"You'd better call her on your phone because she may not answer if I call."

I get her on the phone, tell her the SSA guy needs to ask her some questions.

"Were you married to Keith Mealy on <date>?"

"Yes," she says.

"Are you still married?"

"Yes," she says.

"Thank you, that's all I needed."

Me: rolling eyes

Then he tries to talk me out of the option I've chosen.  (something I thought they were forbidden to do)   Duh.   I did the math on my own, worked with a planning service, used an online benefits optimization calculator, and repeated the analysis with someone at my stock broker's company.  All recommended this choice.

 

Knowing what the hassle was at our SS office, I enrolled on line. Much easier, and no crowd to deal with (or that other stuff). Funny, I don't remember the marriage thing being an issue to address, but it was a few years back. things may be different now, they've made some changes to the website...I know I haven't signed in for some time becuase they want me to update to an unmanageable password (10 characters, i cap, 1 lower case, 1 symbol, 1 number,  1 something else....none of which my other passwords require).

Well, while I am FRA, my wife just snuck in by two weeks on File-and-suspend.   So I'm filing for spousal benefits only until I'm 70, when I'll switch to my own benefits.   There were dozens of options on how to file.  Well more, if you consider you can file any month between age 62 and 70.   And since some of the options went away, I wanted to make sure it was done right (and the guy that helped me didn't think I could file the way I wanted to online any more).