Your Local Broker for Medicare Insurance Needs
Jay Looft Owner/Agent
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What exactly is IRMAA?
Some of you are aware of this acronym, IRMAA. But what is it, and how could it affect you?
IRMAA stands for Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount. It is a government surcharge added to your monthly Medicare Part B and Part D Premium if your Adjusted Gross Income exceeds certain government income thresholds.
A client recently said to me, “We’ve finally outrun IRMAA”, which I thought was a clever way to phrase the situation they were in. See, this year’s IRMAA is based on a 2-year look-back from tax-year 2023. In her situation, they had a large income year in 2022, which would have significantly increased their payment to Medicare. Since they had access to a pretty decent employer-based health insurance, they stayed put until the IRMAA look-back rolled into the next tax year.
The Medicare IRMAA surcharge is on a rolling system. So, if you continue to work past age 65 and have significant ups and downs in your income, then some years you might be subject to the surcharge and some years you might not.
A simple search-engine web search for “Medicare IRMAA” should pull up multiple resources that dive deep into this issue.
Make sure you are looking at the right numbers! Keep in mind:
• The tax year the government is basing their calculations on (2-year look-back)
• Marital status - if married, the government allows for a higher income threshold
• Know your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)
Medicare IRMAA is a Medicare topic, but most professional accountants will be very familiar with this part of the law. You should seek counsel from them when calculating AGI and for other tax related guidance. I am not a professional accountant and can only professionally guide you with your Medicare insurance.
I would be happy to discuss your Medicare insurance situation with you and become your Medicare insurance broker. Give us a call at (770) 913-6464 or send us a message at SeniorSourceMedicare.com/contactseniorsource.
Brought to you by - SeniorSource Medicare Solutions
What exactly are allergies?
Brought to you by – Comprehensive Internal Medicine
What are allergies?
Allergies are your body’s reaction to a foreign particle, usually a protein. These proteins can come from pet dander, molds, pollens, or from trees and grasses. If you develop an allergy to a particular protein, your body’s defense system (immune system) reacts to it and the allergic reaction creates allergy symptoms.
What is an allergic reaction?
An allergic reaction is the way your body responds to an allergen, usually a protein.
You may feel itchy, watery eyes, a runny nose, sinus or ear fullness, a hoarse voice, a scratchy throat, or trouble breathing. You may even develop a skin rash.
These symptoms can be treated with over the counter or prescription allergy medication or immunotherapy (allergy shots) can be tailored specifically for you.
What is allergy testing?
To perform allergy testing, small pinpricks or scratches are made in the
It’s Allergy Season in Atlanta
skin and a very small amount of allergen is placed to test your body’s response. If you react to the allergen, we have identified a trigger that is causing your allergy symptoms.
What is immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is a treatment used to desensitize your body to the allergy trigger.
In this treatment, the results of your allergy testing are used to create a very personalized formula of medicine that is used to slowly treat your immune system in a way that stops reacting to your allergy trigger. Immunotherapy medicine is given by injection (allergy shots) and is administered twice weekly. The first injection is given in the doctor’s office. Comprehensive Internal Medicine uses an advanced formulation and instruction that allows you to then give the injections at home. This saves the twice-weekly visits to the doctor’s office. You return to Comprehensive Internal Medicine every 6 weeks to progress the therapy and at the end of one year, allergy testing is repeated. Often, a second year of treatment is advised, following which, most allergies are cured.
Dr. Obiora has a special interest in managing medical issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He also specializes in diabetes prevention and weight loss.
In addition, he brings expertise in allergy treatment and managing allergic rhinitis, sinusitis and asthma, and can schedule allergy testing to determine the best way to treat allergy symptoms.
Dr. Bozof specializes is men’s health, cardiovascular risk assessment and the evaluation and management of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. He also provides evaluation for testosterone levels and treatment as needed.
In addition, he brings expertise in allergy treatment and managing allergic rhinitis, sinusitis and asthma, and can schedule allergy testing to determine the best way to treat allergy symptoms.
Alexis brings years of nursing experience to Comprehensive Internal Medicine and has expertise in the care of Allergy and Asthma patients. She prides herself in forming lasting relationships with her patients, while also providing compassionate and individualized care. She has a special interest in the treatment of sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, asthma and allergies.
In addition, she brings expertise in allergy treatment and managing allergic rhinitis, sinusitis and asthma, and can schedule allergy testing to determine the best way to treat allergy symptoms.
Jeffrey Obiora, M.D.
Ryan Bozof, M.D.
Alexis Miller, MSN,APRN,FNP-C. • Laurae Carpenetti, M.D. • Arezou Fatemi, M.D. • Carol Hector, M.D. • Jacqueline T. Pearson, M.D., M.S. • Sudeshna Nandi M.D. • Sumera Pervaiz M.D.
Alexis Miller, MSN,APRN,FNP-C.
Honored to be Voted: Best Dermatologist and Best Vein Specialist
Insist on the
BEST
Dr. Brent Taylor is a Board-Certified Dermatologist, a Fellowship-Trained Mohs Surgeon, and is certified by the Board of Venous and Lymphatic Medicine in the field of Vein Care.
He is an expert in skin cancer and melanoma treatment, endovenous laser ablation, minimally invasive vein procedures and cosmetics procedures such as Botox and injectables.
Kathryn is a certified physician assistant with over 22 years experience as a Dermatology PA and cosmetic dermatology.
Her specialties include general dermatology such as acne, eczema, rashes, hair loss, full body skin exams, abnormal growths etc. Kathryn also specializes in cosmetic dermatology including lasers, injectables, micro-needling, PRP, facial peels, sclerotherapy for spider veins and at home skin care.
Is Lidocaine a secret weapon against cancer?
We always worry about the negative side-effects that a medicine might have. At the end of a pharmaceutical company’s commercials, an auctioneer very quickly states the twenty terrible things that might happen if you take the advertised medicine. Side effects range from your ear falling off when you sneeze to the belief that you are Elvis. Side-effects make almost any medicine sound scary. But occasionally, a positive side effect emerges. Sometimes, we discover something wonderful about a medicine that is wholly unexpected.
Examples of positive side-effects are not hard to find. The medicine finasteride was first being used to help decrease the size of the prostate in men who were having difficulty urinating. An unexpected positive side-effect was discovered when it was noticed that many of the men were regrowing their scalp hair. With finasteride, male pattern baldness was often partially reversed or stopped in its tracks.
One of the most recent medications discovered to have a possible positive side effect is lidocaine, which has been around since 1943. Lidocaine is an injectable anesthetic. We use lidocaine for skin biopsies, excisions, Mohs surgeries and countless other procedures every day in the dermatology office. Amazingly, lidocaine may be more than an anesthetic. It may also have anti-cancer effects.
A team of surgeons in India operating on breast cancer divided patients into two groups. One group had standard breast cancer surgery. The other group received a lidocaine injection around the tumor 7-10 minutes prior to surgery. During the 5 years after surgery, the group that received the lidocaine injection had an 8.5% rate of the cancer recurring (popping up again) at a distant site versus an 11.6% rate of distant recurrence in the surgeryonly (no lidocaine) group. The study has some limitations including not being a double-blind trial and being a single-
center study, but it is intriguing enough to warrant further investigation. The authors reported that injecting lidocaine around breast cancer before removing it increased survival in their study.
What made the surgeons perform this study in the first place? Why lidocaine? Over the last few years, researchers have discovered that electrical gradients maintained across the membranes of cancer cells are important to their ability to metastasize or spread. Our cells have pumps in them called “ion channels.” They allow certain ions to pass across the cell membrane. The resulting ion concentration gradient creates an electrical charge across a cell. This gradient affects the way other proteins in the cell function. Importantly, some of the proteins affected by the charge across a cell membrane are important for healthy cells’ growth and development as well as for cancers’ ability to grow and spread.
Lidocaine works by blocking sodium channels in cell membranes. Disrupting the electric charge across a cancer cell membrane was suspected to have the potential to weaken the cancer itself. Preclinical studies supported this hypothesis, and the breast cancer surgeons took the next step of performing a trial with breast cancer patients and peritumoral lidocaine injections.
I don’t know if breast cancer surgeons in the United States consider these results valid, are awaiting confirmatory studies or are already injecting lidocaine. However, in dermatology, these results are exciting because, for now, we do not need to change anything that we are already doing. Every day that I perform Mohs surgery, we inject the area around a tumor with lidocaine prior to surgically removing the cancer. If lidocaine is more than an anesthetic, then our patients are likely already benefiting from any anti-cancer properties that lidocaine has.
Mohs surgery is the gold standard for treating most skin cancers and has a cure rate that is usually at or above 99%. Perhaps lidocaine is one of the secrets to this success.
Dr. Brent Taylor
Kathryn Filipek, PA-C
Brought to you by – Dr. Brent Taylor, Premier Dermatology and Mohs Surgery of Atlanta
What exactly is IRMAA?
Some of you are aware of this acronym, IRMAA. But what is it, and how could it affect you?
IRMAA stands for Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount. It is a government surcharge added to your monthly Medicare Part B and Part D Premium if your Adjusted Gross Income exceeds certain government income thresholds.
A client recently said to me, “We’ve finally outrun IRMAA”, which I thought was a clever way to phrase the situation they were in. See, this year’s IRMAA is based on a 2-year look-back from tax-year 2023. In her situation, they had a large income year in 2022, which would have significantly increased their payment to Medicare. Since they had access to a pretty decent employer-based health insurance, they stayed put until the IRMAA lookback rolled into the next tax year.
The Medicare IRMAA surcharge is on a rolling system. So, if you continue to work past age 65 and have significant ups and downs in your income, then some years you might be subject to the surcharge and some years you might not.
A simple search-engine web search for “Medicare IRMAA” should pull up multiple resources that dive deep into this issue.
Make sure you are looking at the right numbers! Keep in mind:
• The tax year the government is basing their calculations on (2-year look-back)
• Marital status - if married, the government allows for a higher income threshold
• Know your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)
Medicare IRMAA is a Medicare topic, but most professional accountants will be very familiar with this part of the law. You should seek counsel from them when calculating AGI and for other tax related guidance. I am not a professional accountant and can only professionally guide you with your Medicare insurance.
I would be happy to discuss your Medicare insurance situation with you and become your Medicare insurance broker. Give us a call at (770) 315-8145 or send us a message at SeniorSourceMedicare.com/contactseniorsource.
Your Local Broker for Medicare Insurance Needs
Paige Gorman Agent
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• Provides
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Importance of skin checks for mature skin
Brought
to you by
- Dr. Kehinde Olumesi of Epiphany Dermatology - Brookhaven
As skin matures, it undergoes various changes that necessitate regular skin checks to ensure overall skin health. Differentiating between age spots, healthy moles and potential skin cancers is crucial. Age spots, often appearing as flat, brown, or black spots on sun-exposed areas, are generally harmless but can be mistaken for more serious conditions. Early detection of skin cancer, including melanoma, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, significantly increases the chances of successful treatment. Therefore, routine skin examinations are essential for mature skin to maintain health and catch any issues early.
Addressing skin conditions and rejuvenation procedures
Dermatologists can assist with a variety of skin conditions and rejuvenation procedures for mature skin. Common issues such as dryness, age-related pigmentation and conditions like rosacea, psoriasis and eczema, which can persist or develop with age, are also addressed with specialized care plans.
In addition to treating conditions,
dermatologists offer rejuvenating procedures to enhance the appearance and health of mature skin. Treatments such as chemical peels, laser rejuvenation and injectable treatments like BOTOX®
Cosmetic and dermal fillers can reduce the appearance of wrinkles, improve skin texture and promote collagen production. These procedures not only rejuvenate the skin but also boost confidence and overall
well-being. Establishing a relationship with a dermatologist ensures that your skin receives comprehensive care tailored to its evolving needs, promoting long-term skin health and vitality.
