It sounds like you're getting a grip on this, TWA. Definitely apply for Medicaid in whatever form might be available to you. This suggests to me that you might be eligible for having the state pay for your Part B Medicare premium. If you get that, then I think you automatically get "Extra Help" on prescriptions.

There is really no one out there with the responsibility of helping you figure all this out. Being new to Medicare, I do know what you mean. Luckily, I went through the process a few years ago, when I helped a friend navigate through the system. Forget anyone at Health and Human Services knowing much about anything. The old days of having a social worker case manager to get you through the system are long gone. Those gals sitting at the computers at the place where you apply for Medicaid are basically clerks, who depend on the computer to do their thinking for them. Supposedly, they are all case managers, but they are really just clerks. A year or two from now, you'll understand things better than they do, at least relative to your own situation. People at these government agencies will give you contradicting information. Believe nothing that you are told. Just apply for everything. You will get letters in the mail approving or disapproving what you apply for. Those letters are more apt to be authoritative. What those "clerks" tell you is not.

If you're in between living in two different areas, then that does complicate things. Glad that you are moving to a more enlightened place, if I understood you rightly.

Eventually, getting into a Medicare Advantage plan will probably be the way for you to go. It probably will be, at some point for me, even if just to get free membership in the YMCA through the Silver Sneakers program that many Advantage programs sponsor.