Skip to main content

The Money Overview

Avatar photo
Author

Tyler Foster

Latest Articles by Tyler Foster

Social Security & Medicare

Medicare covers a medically necessary ambulance ride when other travel would risk your health

Medicare will pay for an ambulance, but only under a test that catches many patients off guard: the ride has to be medically necessary, meaning...

Social Security & Medicare

Original Medicare now covers many telehealth visits from home

A retiree in Original Medicare can, right now, see a doctor by video from the kitchen table and have Medicare pay its share — a...

Social Security & Medicare

Anti-rejection drugs stay covered for life for Medicare kidney-transplant patients

For decades, Medicare paid for a kidney transplant and then, three years later, stopped paying for the drugs that keep the new organ alive. The...

Social Security & Medicare

Medicare pays for a one-time abdominal aortic aneurysm screening for those at risk

An abdominal aortic aneurysm gives almost no warning. The body’s largest artery balloons silently, often for years, until it ruptures — an event that kills...

Social Security & Medicare

Medicare covers medical nutrition therapy at no cost for people with diabetes or kidney disease

Among the long list of Medicare services that carry a copay or a deductible, medical nutrition therapy is a rarity: for the people who qualify,...

Social Security & Medicare

Many states run a pharmaceutical assistance program that helps seniors pay for prescriptions

Medicare Part D is not the only program that can pay down a senior’s drug bill. A number of states — though far from all...

Social Security & Medicare

Every state offers free one-on-one Medicare counseling through its SHIP program

Every state funds free, one-on-one Medicare counseling through a program most enrollees have never heard of: the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, or SHIP. Backed...

Social Security & Medicare

A widow or widower can switch between a survivor benefit and their own retirement check to get the most

For a widow or widower, Social Security offers a choice that most beneficiaries never get: two different benefits, drawn from two different records, that can...

Social Security & Medicare

A disabled worker’s spouse and children can also draw a monthly check on that worker’s Social Security record

When a worker qualifies for Social Security disability benefits, the payment does not have to stop with the worker. A spouse and children can each...

Social Security & Medicare

Legal immigrants who earned 40 work credits can collect Social Security like any other worker

A widespread assumption holds that Social Security retirement benefits are reserved for citizens. They are not. The program pays a monthly retirement benefit based on...

Social Security & Medicare

A dependent parent of a worker who dies can qualify for a monthly Social Security parent’s benefit

Most Social Security survivor benefits flow down a generation, to a widow, widower, or child. One little-known benefit runs the other way: an aging parent...

Social Security & Medicare

A surviving divorced spouse can collect Social Security survivor benefits when the marriage lasted 10 years

A divorce does not always sever the Social Security tie between two people. When a former spouse dies, the survivor can still draw a monthly...

Social Security & Medicare

A Social Security “disability freeze” keeps low-earning years from dragging down your future retirement check

Social Security figures a retirement check from a worker’s highest-earning years, which means a stretch of little or no income can quietly shrink the benefit...

Cost of Living

Macy’s plans to close about 150 stores by year’s end

Macy’s is closing in on the finish line of a plan to shut roughly 150 of its namesake department stores, a retrenchment that began in...

Fraud & Scams

Older Americans reported losing billions to fraud last year, with investment scams draining the most

Older Americans reported losing about $2.4 billion to fraud in the most recent year the government tallied, a figure that has quadrupled since 2020, and...

Fraud & Scams

Comcast is paying Xfinity customers $50 with no proof over a data breach, with a September 14 deadline

Current and former Xfinity customers have until September 14 to claim a flat $50 payment, with no documentation required, from Comcast’s $117.5 million settlement over...

1 25 26 27 28 29 180
Plain-English help keeping more of your money in retirement. Get the free newsletter.

Free from Retirement Shield. Unsubscribe anytime. We never ask for money.