How Membership Works
Membership is for the part that comes after general Medicare information.
You may already understand the basic terrain, have used the Library, or know the questions you are supposed to ask — and still be unsure how those questions apply to your own doctors, prescriptions, timing, budget, family responsibilities, or risk.
The Clearing membership brings that work into one place. You begin with your situation, organize what matters, identify what still needs verification, and complete the next useful step without having to hold the entire process in your head.
The Library helps you understand the terrain. Membership helps you work through the route that applies to you.
Three parts support the work.
Each part has a different job.
Plain-language guidance on Medicare situations, timing, tradeoffs, and the questions that matter.
See the full mapA private, plan-neutral sounding board for asking questions, thinking through tradeoffs, and working toward the next useful step.
Meet FernA place to ask questions, compare experiences, and learn from honest Field Reports without treating someone else’s outcome as your answer.
See how the Community worksThe work remains connected.
Membership is not a collection of separate tools. The work carries forward.
Your Requirements List, Blueprint, decisions, annual review, and supporting tools remain part of one continuing record.
The living record of your decision, updated as your situation develops:
A structured re-check of what changed and whether the coverage still fits:
Print-only tools for comparisons, costs, SHIP preparation, annual review, red flags, and decision documentation.
The Clearing does not collect what you write on paper worksheets.
A separate path for people helping someone else make or manage a Medicare decision. It is not the main Handbook with a few words changed.
Explore the Caregiver TrackWhen something changes, you return to the work already in place.
Your first steps
Membership begins with the situation you are facing — not with a required sequence of lessons.
Complete the Self-Audit to gather the facts, timing, priorities, and questions that belong to you.
Build the first version of your Blueprint from what the Self-Audit gathered.
Identify the decision, notice, change, or question that needs attention.
Use Fern, the Handbook, a worksheet, SHIP (your free State Health Insurance Assistance Program), or another appropriate source.
You do not have to follow a fixed path.
Begin with the decision, notice, or change in front of you. Use the parts of The Program that help you complete that work, then return when something changes.
Between those moments, use only the guidance, tools, and verification the work requires. The work begins where you are.
Some work is private. Some becomes clearer when shared.
Fern works from your situation, facts, and decision record.
It helps organize what applies to you, identify what still needs attention, and preserve the reasoning in your Blueprint.
The Community adds perspective from people who have faced related questions, tradeoffs, and outcomes.
Ask questions, compare experiences, join Caretaker Corner, mark progress in Your Wins, and read honest Field Reports.
Field Reports are not testimonials. They are members’ honest accounts of what worked, what changed, what cost more than expected, and what they wish they had checked.
The Community can add perspective. It does not replace your own decision work.
One membership includes the primary member plus up to two additional users.
Add a spouse, partner, caregiver, adult child, sibling, or another trusted person helping with the decision.
Additional users participate according to the access available in the primary member’s workspace.
Membership does not create power of attorney, HIPAA authorization, representative status, or authority to enroll another person.
The free public layer remains useful on its own.
The Library, tools, Self-Audit, and Hazel are designed for people who want to understand Medicare and work through the terrain independently. Membership does not replace the free public layer. It adds the Handbook, Fern, the Medicare Blueprint, ongoing review, caregiver support, and Community around the member’s own situation.
Medicare.gov and SHIP remain appropriate official and independent resources.
One membership includes the primary member plus up to two additional users.
Membership is not more Medicare content. It is guided application of the content around you.
The terms, in plain English.
What you pay, when it renews, and what happens if you cancel.
$299 annually, or $39 monthly where available, billed on the cadence you choose. Any applicable taxes appear at checkout.
Membership renews automatically on the billing schedule you choose.
Founding Circle annual pricing remains in place while membership stays uninterrupted.
Cancel before your next renewal to stop future charges.
Access continues through the membership period already paid for.
When the membership ends, your Blueprint and member workspace enter a read-only archive so you and any additional users can retrieve and export your work.
Additional-user access ends with the primary membership.
Begin with the work in front of you.
The Program begins with your situation — not with a plan, a sales conversation, or a required course sequence. You provide the facts and make the decision. The Clearing provides the framework. Fern helps keep the work organized and moving.