About us
We sell exactly one thing: clarity.
Medicare Decoder exists because 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day and get handed a 100-page handbook, a pile of broker mailers, and a decision with lifelong consequences. We think a smart friend with no plan to sell you is worth more than all of it.
Why this exists
The Medicare help you find online has a job. It isn't helping you.
Government sites are complete and unreadable. Broker marketplaces steer toward whatever pays the best commission. Big-brand content is written for everyone, which means it's personalized for no one. And the glossy mailers flooding your mailbox the month you turn 64? Those are ads with a Medicare card on them.
What was missing was the thing you'd actually want: someone who studied the rules, has no plan to sell, and will just tell you which path fits your situation and what it really costs. That's the product. Nine questions, five minutes, a straight answer with the reasoning shown.
Follow the money
How we get paid, step by step
Any "free" Medicare site is making money somehow. Ours works like this, and only like this:
- You use the decoder. Free, anonymous, runs on your device. At this point we have earned $0 and know nothing about you.
- Your results include an optional offer: an introduction to a licensed insurance broker. Most people skip it. That's fine.
- If you take the introduction and end up enrolling in a plan through that broker, the broker pays us a referral fee, typically a few hundred dollars.
- That's it. No data sales, no ads, no premium paywall in front of the recommendation.
The important structural point: the decoder's recommendation logic is fixed before you arrive and runs entirely in your browser. It cannot steer you toward the answer that pays us, because no answer pays us. Only your later, separate choice to meet a broker does.
Editorial standards
The rules we hold ourselves to
- Numbers come from CMS, with vintages. Every dollar figure on this site is a published 2026 amount from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or is clearly labeled as an estimate with its range. We update within weeks of CMS publishing each year's rates.
- Both paths get their downsides printed. We tell you Medigap costs real money every month. We tell you Advantage networks and prior authorization are real constraints. If a page reads like an ad for either path, we've failed and want to hear about it.
- We never see your answers. The decoder collects no name, email, or phone number, and transmits nothing. This isn't a privacy policy promise we could quietly break server-side; the code that runs in your browser simply has nowhere to send it.
- We say "talk to a professional" when it's true. A quiz can narrow the field; it can't see the actual plans in your zip code or replace a licensed agent for enrollment specifics. We're the map, not the driver.
Who's behind this
Medicare Decoder is independently owned and written. It is not owned by, funded by, or affiliated with any insurance carrier, broker network, or government agency. Spot an error anywhere on this site? Tell us through the contact form and we'll fix it, and thank you by name in the newsletter if you'd like.