11 Costly Medicare Mistakes You Should Avoid Making

If you don't make the right choices, you could end up with high Medicare premiums and big out-of-pocket costs.

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Medicare covers the bulk of your health care expenses after you turn 65. But Medicare's rules can be confusing and mistakes are costly. If you don't make the right choices to fill in the gaps, you could end up with high premiums and big out-of-pocket costs. Worse, if you miss key deadlines when signing up for Medicare, you could have a gap in coverage, miss out on valuable tax breaks, or get stuck with a penalty for the rest of your life.

Here are 11 common Medicare mistakes you should avoid making:

Personal Finance Writer

Donna joined Kiplinger as a personal finance writer in 2023. She spent more than a decade as the contributing editor of J.K.Lasser's Your Income Tax Guide and edited state specific legal treatises at ALM Media. She has shared her expertise as a guest on Bloomberg, CNN, Fox, NPR, CNBC and many other media outlets around the nation.