Yesterday was one of those days. Since I am moving to England this month, I won’t be covered by Medicare.
1- to unenroll from Medicare one must fill out a paper form, print it out, sign it, and bring it to your local Social Security office or fax it. Of course, you can no longer drop by your local office and take a number like you’re at the deli. No, you must make an appointment. First available is November 3rd. Thus, I had to drive to Office Depot and pay $2 to send a 1 page fax. By the way, they unenroll you the last day of the month of the month following the date you submit. Since I submitted the form yesterday, I’m covered until October 31st.
2- to unenroll from Medicare supplement, I had to find the correct website. I am retired from the University of Tennessee. UT or UTK website? Payroll? Finance and Administration? UT retiree website? The insurance company website? After 1 1/2 hours of searching, multiple phone calls, including 2 disconnects, I finally spoke with a nice woman who got me to the correct online form. Only to discover that the form has a multiple choice for the reason why you are unenrolling. One option is because you are leaving the U.S., which I selected. The next field wants your new address…….but, but, but only gives you U.S. address fields (city, state, zip code). Poor, awful, useless form design. Besides, why the hell is it any of their business what my new address will be?

Federal and Tennessee governments. 🤦‍♀️

Next up – figuring out the phone number situation. With 2 factor authentication on all of my U.S. accounts, I will maybe want to keep my current phone number and add a UK number on another e-sim. 🤷‍♀️