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There are three phone calls that can add as much as $570 to your Social Security and Medicare money every single month. And most people over 65 never make a single one of them. Not because the calls are hard, not because you have to be special to qualify, but because nobody at Social Security and nobody at Medicare has any reason to call you and tell you to make them.
Now, $570 a month may not sound like a fortune, but do the simple math. Over a 20-year retirement, that adds up to more than $130,000. That is your money. It was sitting there the whole time with your name on it waiting for three phone calls that take one afternoon to make. And here is the part I really want you to remember. The third call I'm going to give you is the one the government has the least reason to ever tell you about. It cancels a fee that millions of older people are paying right now and do not even know it. And when you win, they pay you back. So before you decide your check must be right just because it has always looked the same, let me show you what these three calls are, the exact words to say on each one, and the order to make them in. Stay with me because the third call is the one most people miss and it is often the biggest.
First, let me tell you who I am. My name is Walter Baron. I am an estate attorney licensed by the state bar. And for more than 15 years, I have sat at the kitchen table with families, helping them with their homes, their savings, and the paperwork that decides how much of their own money they get to keep. And here is what I learned early. These systems run on autopilot. Social Security pays your check automatically. Medicare sets your bill automatically. They use old records. They use the standard formula. And then they move on. Nobody there is paid to look at your file and ask if you are leaving money behind. That job is yours. And these three calls are how you do it.
Let me paint you a quick picture because numbers are easier to feel when you see them on a real check. Picture a man who just retired after his last big year of work. His Social Security started. The deposit showed up every month and he figured the amount must be right. It was not. Two of his best earning years had been written down wrong. So his check was set too low from the very first day. On the Medicare side, his income dropped by more than half the day he stopped working, but he was still being charged an extra fee based on his old higher pay. And on top of that, his income was now low enough that a program he had never heard of could have paid his Medicare bill for him. Three different things, all pulling money out of the same check every month, and not one letter ever showed up to warn him. That is not a rare story. That is normal. The system is not trying to cheat you. It just sits there and does nothing. And doing nothing is what costs you.
So, let me show you the three calls, one at a time, in the order you should make them.
Call number one. This one goes to Social Security itself. The phone number is on the back of your card and on any letter they have sent you. But the number is not the important part. The important part is what you ask for once a real person picks up. Here is what most people do not know. Your monthly Social Security check is built from a record of everything you earned year by year across your whole working life. And that record is not always right. Employers report the wrong numbers. Whole years go missing. Money you made working for yourself gets left off. And the computer does not fix it for you. It just pays whatever the record says. So, if even a few of your best years are wrong or missing, your check was set too low from day one and you have been shorted a little every month ever since.
So, here is the first thing you say on the call. Ask them to pull up your earnings record and go through it with you year by year and compare it to what you actually earned. You are looking for missing years, years that look too low, and any job that never made it onto the list. If you find a problem, ask how to fix it and ask if fixing it makes your check go up. Then ask them to redo the math on your benefit. That is called a recomputation, which is just a fancy word for running the numbers again. If you kept working after you retired or if a year was wrong, your check can be recalculated and it can go up.
And there is one group I want to talk to directly because they get shorted more than anyone and it almost always gets missed. If you are a widow or a widower, the rules for survivor benefits are some of the most confusing in the whole system. People get paid less than they are owed for years. So if your husband or wife has passed away, ask them on this call to check that you are getting the right survivor amount and to tell you whether you are better off on your own record or on your late spouse's. I have seen this one fix change a check by hundreds of dollars a month. Social Security will not call you about this. You have to call them.
Now, let me tell you exactly what to have in front of you before you dial because being ready is what makes the call work. Have your Social Security card or number. Have a photo ID. And if you still have any old tax returns, W2 forms, or pay stubs from your working years, keep those close. Those are your proof if a year on their record does not match what you really earned. On the call, be patient, be polite, and be clear. Do not just ask, "Is my check right?" Ask them to do two specific things. Go through the earnings record year by year and rerun the math. Clear requests get real action. Vague ones get a vague answer and a goodbye.
Let me give you the exact words so you do not have to think on the spot. When the person picks up, you say this. "Hello. I would like to review my earnings record with you year by year and I want to request a recomputation of my benefit. I believe some of my earnings may be missing or recorded incorrectly." Then you stop talking and you let them pull it up. That one sentence puts them to work on the two things that actually move your check. Write down what they find. And if they say a correction is needed, ask them in plain words, "When will I see the change? And will it be backdated?" Backdated is the important word. Because if you were underpaid for years, you may be owed that money going back.
One more thing about all three of these calls, because it matters. You are calling a government office, so keep a record. Write down the date, the time, the name of the person you talked to, and what they told you. If they say they will look into something, ask for it in writing or ask for a reference number. That one habit is the difference between a fix that actually happens and one that quietly vanishes.
And the next call is a completely different kind of win. It does not fix your record. It stops money from leaving your check in the first place through an office. Most people do not even know they are allowed to call.
Call number two. This one does not go to Social Security at all. And that is exactly why almost nobody makes it. It goes to your state's Medicare Savings Program office. This is a program run by your state and it can do something that sounds too good to be true. If your income is under a certain amount, the Medicare Savings Program will pay your Medicare Part B bill for you. The whole thing in 2026. That is about $185 a month going straight back into your pocket. Money that was being pulled out of your Social Security check before you ever saw it.
Here is why people miss this one. The income limits are higher than most people think, and they change every year. So, someone who checked 5 years ago and did not qualify might qualify today. And a lot of people who would qualify never even apply because no one ever told them the program exists. Remember, your Medicare Part B bill is taken straight out of your Social Security check automatically before the money ever lands in your bank. So, you never write a check for it. You never feel it leave. And you never stop to ask whether someone else is supposed to be paying it.
So, on this call, you ask your state's Medicare Savings Program office two things. "How do I apply? And what are the income limits this year?" Do not talk yourself out of it by assuming you make too much. The limits surprise people and there are different levels. So even if you are a little over one line, you might fit under another one that still helps. If you qualify, that bill stops coming out of your check. And for some people, there is extra help on top of that. One phone call to an office most people do not know exists to claim help you may have been able to get all along.
And here are the exact words for this one. You say, "I would like to apply for the Medicare Savings Program, and I would like to know this year's income and savings limits for my state." Simple as that. But while you have them on the phone, ask about one more thing, because it is one of the most valuable benefits almost nobody claims. And here is the good news. Qualifying for that first program usually qualifies you for this one automatically. It is called Extra Help. What it does is pay for most of the cost of your prescription medicines. If you qualify, the amount you pay out of your own pocket at the pharmacy drops way down. In 2026, you would pay no more than about $12.65 for a brand name medicine and around $5 for the generic kind. For someone who takes a few prescriptions, Extra Help can be worth more than $6,000 a year. And that is on top of the $570 a month we are already talking about. So on this same call, you just add one more sentence. "I would also like to apply for Extra Help for my prescriptions." Two programs, one phone call, and most people claim neither simply because no one ever told them to ask.
And that brings me to the third call. This is the one I told you about at the start, the one the government has the least reason to ever mention. And for a lot of people, it is the biggest of the three. So, if you remember nothing else today, remember this one. It goes back to Medicare and it is about an extra fee with a confusing name. The name is the Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount. Most people just call it IRMA or Irma. Forget the long name. Here is all it means. If your income is above a certain level, Medicare charges you an extra fee on top of your normal bill. For people with higher incomes, that extra fee can be hundreds of dollars a month. On its own, that is just the rule, and that is fair enough. But here is the trap, and it is a cruel one. The income Medicare looks at is not what you make this year. It is your tax return from two years ago. So your 2026 bill is based on what you earned back in 2024. Now think about who that hurts the most. Someone who is still working in 2024, earning a full paycheck and then retired. Today their income is a fraction of what it was. But Medicare is still charging them that extra fee based on their old higher pay. They are being punished today for money they no longer make.
Let me put real numbers on it so you can see how big this is. For one person, just over the first income line, that extra fee can be around $70 or $80 a month on top of the normal bill. At the higher income levels, it climbs into the hundreds of dollars a month. And they pay it quietly month after month because it is just taken out of the check before they ever see it. And here is the thing almost nobody knows. You can fight this, but the form that fixes it is not something Social Security hands you. It is a form called the SSA-44. Its full name is the Medicare Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount Life-Changing Event Form. That phrase "life-changing event" is the key to the whole thing. The government lets you challenge that extra fee if your income went down because of a major life change. And retirement counts. So does losing a pension, the death of a husband or wife, a divorce, or simply stopping work. If any of those things lowered your income, you can file the SSA-44, show them what you actually make now, and get that extra fee lowered or taken off completely.
So on this third call, you contact Social Security. You tell them you have had a life change that lowered your income, and you ask for the SSA-4 form to challenge your Medicare extra fee. You fill it out. You attach proof of the change and you send it in. And here's the best part of this whole call. If they say yes, they do not just lower your bill going forward. They go back and pay you back for the extra fees you already overpaid while they were using the wrong number. Money from the past sent back to you. I have watched this one fix put thousands of dollars back into someone's account.
And again, here are the exact words. You call Social Security and you say, "I have had a life change that lowered my income. I have retired and I want to file form SSA-44 to lower my Medicare premium." Then you ask them to either mail you the form or tell you exactly where to get it. And you ask what proof you need to send with it. Usually that proof is something simple like a letter showing you stopped working or a statement of your new income. One more thing about timing, and it matters. Do not sit on this. The sooner you file after your income drops, the sooner the lower premium starts and the more of those overpaid fees you get back. Waiting only costs you money.
Now, let me pause for a second because so many of you have written and asked me to put all of this in one place. Everything I just walked you through, the earnings review, the Medicare Savings Program, and the Medicare fee appeal with the SSA-4, plus the other money moves I cover on this channel, like the property tax breaks, the Social Security traps, and how to protect yourself from scams. I put all of it into one simple guide. It is written in plain English for people over 65, and you can read it on any phone, tablet, or computer with the exact steps for each one. It is called the Senior Money Playbook. If you would like to have these steps in your hand before you ever pick up the phone, the link is in the description below.
Now, before I give you the full picture, I want to save you from the three mistakes that cause these requests to get turned down because a little preparation is the difference between a yes and a no. The first mistake is calling the wrong office. Calls one and three go to Social Security. Call two, the Medicare Savings Program and Extra Help, goes to your state, not to Social Security. Send the right request to the right place. The second mistake is showing up with no proof. When your income has dropped or when an earnings year is wrong, they need to see a document, not just hear your word. Have your proof ready before you call and you turn a maybe into a yes. And the third mistake is the quiet one, and it is waiting too long. Every month you wait on the Medicare fee appeal is a month you keep overpaying and money you may not get back. The people who win these are not the ones with the most money. They are the ones who called early and came prepared.
So, let me put the whole picture together because the real power is in making all three calls in order. Call one goes to Social Security. You ask them to go through your earnings record year by year and rerun the math on your check. And if you are a widow or widower, you ask them to make sure your survivor amount is right. This fixes a check that may have been too low from the very start. Call two goes to your state's Medicare Savings Program office. You ask how to apply and what this year's income limits are. If you qualify, they pay your Medicare Part B for you. That is about $185 a month that stops coming out of your check. Call three goes back to Social Security. You tell them you had a life change that lowered your income. You ask for the SSA-4 and you challenge your Medicare extra fee. If you win, your bill goes down and they pay you back what you already overpaid.
For someone who qualifies for all three, the combined difference can be as much as $570 a month. And that is the number to hold on to because it is not a one-time check. It is every month for the rest of your life. Over 20 years, that is more than $130,000 that stays with you and your family instead of quietly staying in the system. And if Extra Help is in the picture, too, the prescription savings can sit right on top of that.
Now, think back to the man I told you about at the very start. The one whose deposits showed up like clockwork and who assumed the amount was simply correct. Nothing about his situation was special. He was not owed anything that you are not. The only thing that ever changed for him was the day he stopped assuming, picked up the phone, and asked the questions in order. The earnings review corrected a check that had been too low for years. The state program took over a bill he had been paying himself, and the appeal handed back fees he never should have owed. Same man, same record, same rules. The only difference was that he finally asked. That is the entire secret here. The money was always his. It just sat there quietly until somebody made the calls.
Now, let me be straight with you, the way I would be at my own kitchen table. Not everyone will qualify for all three. The exact dollars depend on your income, your state, and your record. This is general education, not personal, legal, or money advice for your exact situation. And the rules and the limits change every year. So, check your own numbers with Social Security, with Medicare, or with someone you trust before you act. But here is the one thing that never changes. Not one of these three calls will ever be made for you. The earnings review, the Medicare Savings Program, the fee appeal. Every single one of them only happens if you are the one who picks up the phone.
And let me give you one last piece of advice because it is the one that decides who actually wins. Be persistent. These are government offices. The wait times can be long and not every person who answers will know every program by heart. If you get someone who says they cannot help or that a program does not exist, that is not the end. Politely thank them, hang up, and call again because the next person may know exactly what you are asking for. Ask for a supervisor if you need to. The people who get this money are not smarter or luckier. They are simply the ones who did not give up after the first no. Treat it like a job that pays a few hundred an hour because for that one afternoon, it does.
And here is one bonus tip before you go because it saves people a nasty surprise every spring. If you are someone who ends up owing taxes on your Social Security every year, you can ask Social Security to hold back a little for taxes automatically using a form called the W-4V. You pick the percentage, they take it out before they pay you, and you never get hit with a surprise bill in April. It does not add money to your check, but it saves you the shock. And for a lot of people, that peace of mind is worth the two minutes it takes.
So pick up the phone, make the three calls in order, write everything down, and do not assume your check is right just because it has always looked the same. The people who get this money are not the ones who earned more or planned better. They are simply the ones who knew to ask. If this opened your eyes, do me one favor. Send it to someone you love who is over 65 or who is about to retire. Most people will go their whole retirement without ever knowing these three calls exist. And this could be the most valuable afternoon they spend all year. Take care of yourself and I will see you in the next.