How To Walk Into Medicare Knowing More Than Your Salesperson

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Walking into Medicare enrollment without the right information can make it easy to rely on whoever is sitting across from you.

In today’s episode, we’re talking about how to prepare before you enroll, what to understand before a plan is recommended, and why knowing the right questions can change the conversation.

The more you understand Medicare before the sales pitch starts, the easier it is to tell whether the advice truly fits your situation.

As always, we’ll be taking live call-ins. We look forward to hearing from you!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

You are probably going to start Medicare soon, or maybe you've already started. But if you are going to start soon, wouldn't it be nice to know more than all of those salespeople that you are going to talk to? Because they're going to harass you. They're going to call you. They're going to send you letters in the mail. They're going to show up on your doorstep and say, hey, I hear you're turning 65. So today you're going to learn how you can know more than those people and what's important to know so that you can fish out and smell out who is actually trying to help you versus who is just trying to sell you something. My name is Josh Music. Welcome to Medicare School Daily. I'm here in the studio with Evan Cruz. My dad is in India for another week or so. And I don't know exactly where in India he is, but he's uh he's there doing some missions work. And so we've asked some of our Medicare agents, our guides, people that have helped thousands of people, just like yourself, to be on the show with us answering questions and doing some education. So uh welcome. If you have Medicare questions, maybe a concern, a question about your situation, something related to Medicare, Social Security, or retirement in general, you can call in. The phone number to be a part of the show, get your question answered is 833-824-2004. 833-824-2004 Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon Central Time. So don't like your questions, go and answer. Don't make a Medicare mistake. You can call in, get them answered. If you want help for your personal situation, uh as it relates to enrolling in plans, actually choosing coverage, you can call, talk to Evan, talk to other people like Evan that work here. Everyone's been trained by my dad, Marvin, uh, and has had a lot, a lot of thousands of customers that they've helped. The phone number to call in is 800-782-6676. 800-782-6676. You can get your handheld today and get advice that you can rely on. So, Evan, let's talk about this. Yeah. Obviously, you help people enroll in plans. So what can people do? What should they know? I know you've got a story I think we were talking about as it relates to knowing more than the people that all these sales agents that are going to be harassing them.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah. Uh I mean, just it's it's pretty straightforward. I mean, getting educated and where to get that education is important too. But it why does it matter is a big question, too, to do all this stuff. I mean, I I'll find somebody who does this stuff for me and then and I'm all in the clear. I can tend to be that way.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

I'm like, I want to find an expert because I don't want to think about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Right. And then in a lot of things, that's fine. I mean, like uh doing your taxes, find somebody you know who's going to be looking out for you. I I'm not going to question what they do. I mean, that's that's literally their job. And if I have a problem, I literally pay them to fix it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

But generally accountants or CPAs aren't like calling you saying, I want to do your taxes, I want to do your taxes, I want to do your like it's a little bit different because when you start Medicare, there's people that are contacting you, right? Mm-hmm. Like it's it's a different it's a different game.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Right. And and why would they be trying to contact you would be the question, because there's motivation, there's a financial benefit for them to do that. They're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. I mean, they're doing it because there's something that they can get from you. Yeah. And there's the you're those people who are turning 65 are the hottest commodities out there. Everybody wants to talk to them. And if you have, especially if you have a low-income individual, you are you'll never get rid of these calls. It's gonna happen to I tell people at the right at the start, I'm sorry, this is gonna be how it is for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, they're terrible. They're never gonna leave you alone. Terrible fortune teller. Yeah. And so uh what it so what it comes down to then is um, which is right along the lines of this topic, is you're gonna have to help somebody's gonna have to help you. Yeah. Um, who's it gonna be? You know, is it gonna be me? Is it gonna be the guy down the street? But the point is, it's not, it doesn't matter who it is so much as that you know that this is going to be your person for a long time, and you trust this person to be looking out for your best interest. Yeah and we try to be that person as much as we can. So I I had a guy yesterday too who he had uh um he watches the show and everything and uh he was he was hoping he wouldn't get Marvin when he called in because he's like I got six pages of of questions, and I didn't want to waste a lot of his time. He goes, But I know you, Evan, I've seen you on the show, so uh he goes, You're a bit of a celebrity yourself. So he goes, uh but he didn't actually have that many questions, it was fine. But um he said that he uh he has a um uh he goes, full disclosure, I do have a friend who's a broker. Yeah. I don't know if I want to go with him though. He's like, because he really only offers one plan. Yeah. And then later on he tells me uh his friend is 80 or his 80s. He said he's still sharp, he's still a great guy, but I don't know if he's gonna be there for me for a really long time. I'm like, so so uh so you know, I said the easiest thing to tell him, so you don't hurt any feelings or anything. I said, I would just say, listen, I'm way bigger of a problem than you want to deal with. I'm gonna have a lot of questions and a lot of things to issue, and I'm not gonna put that on you. So don't worry about me. I'm good. He's like, Oh, that's so good. Let me write that down. So he wrote that down to kind of get past that because you know, you don't want to hurt a lot. That's all that happens a lot too. You got a family member, I got a nephew who does Medicare or whatever, you know? Yeah. And so they and they said that they're gonna help me out with my plans and and they feel guilty about good. And and the last thing I want to do is stick somebody between a rock and a hard place where they want to go with us because they've they feel like they trust us, but they kind of made some commitment to some person or family member that they want to. And I don't want to put people in that situation. I'm like, you choose us, you choose them, you choose whoever you're comfortable with in the end. I don't want to pressure you into choosing some one particular person, but just note that we know a lot more than the average. You can uh do it yourself. I don't recommend doing that.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

What's the process of doing it yourself?

SPEAKER_01 5:24

The process is gonna be contacting every carrier out there and asking what their rates are and their rate stabilities are and how they how their customer service is gonna be, how easy it's to get a hold of them.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

What do you think they're all gonna say?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

They're gonna all gonna say they can't legally talk about each other, so they're gonna talk about themselves. And that's the only thing that they can say is we can offer this, we can offer this.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

And they're also not like McDonald's will never tell tell you, like, hey, Burger King's got a better burger. No. Right? So that's the value of a broker, I think. Right. So okay. I don't want to get too far down that path. So how do how to how to know more than that salesperson, that person that's trying to work with you? What are the key, like how do you get educated about your options?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

We live in the 21st century now. I mean, it's you don't have to go find a book in a library or you can you can go through online, which we there's lots of resources and videos online to go through. YouTube, I'm gonna go to the code. YouTube's got a ton of good options on there. I mean, uh, Instagram's got a lot of good stuff too, and all those. Uh you can you can just start calling multiple different people, getting their information, say thank you very much, hang up the phone. They don't we don't generally don't appreciate that too much. A lot of people when you're doing when you're calling over and over different agents just for information, just for them to rehash a lot of the stuff you've already heard. Um, it uses a lot of their time too. And we want to be respectful of everybody's time. I want to respect the time of the client. I want them to respect my time too. So I'm not saying just to don't do that's the that's the last resort I would say.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Unless all those people are trying to sell you something. So the government has put out some resources. Um there's this red, white, and blue Medicare in U book. It's about 120 pages or so. And I think you said it good before we started, like 80% of that is irrelevant to you. Right. But there is that book, that resource out there. And if you want to become a student of Medicare, you can definitely read through that. Yeah. Um there's Medicare.gov, right, which is probably very confusing, actually. It's a government website. Generally, we get more questions than help out of Medicare.gov. Right. And that's confusing for even us. We've done this for almost 20 years now.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Right, right, right. And I try to steer people, I don't want to say away from the Medicare and U book and from the Medicare.gov. It's just that it's it's overwhelming. When you're reading all this stuff that just doesn't apply to you, or you're and the information you are trying to look for you can't find, it can be frustrating. Yeah. And then now you start to say this whole Medicare thing is just too hard. It's like, no, no, no. You just need a guide. You need a a somebody who's going to lead you through the maze to the to the to the cheese at the end, a lot faster than you trying to just take every avenue possible to try to figure it out and go, this maze is impossible. It's actually a straight line. Uh but because we deal with these mazes every day, we know exactly where the cheese is. We can take you right to it, you know, when you're based on your situation.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

And I think that's obviously a good point. Like, whenever you know somebody's calling you or or whoever it is, like if you're not enrolled in Medicare A and B, most agents, even good agents, they refuse to help you with it because number one, they're not paid for it. Number two, there is like a little bit of like, well, what if I do something wrong? And then you know, that now they're trapped up in this government system, right? My dad has always made a very big point of like, we help people do this. We're not going to leave you alone. We're going to do, and I've always said, hey, we we get paid by doing all of the unpaid work, all of the stuff that no one else is willing to do, the special enrollment period forms, the IRMA appeal forms, the late enrollment penalty, like all of the stuff that uh, and I think that's one way you can tell if somebody actually is knowledgeable or not, uh, is are they gonna help you with all the extra stuff? Or do they just want to pitch you an advantage plan?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Okay. And that actually leads me to the the story I wanted to tell too. So I had a lady in Hawaii, she'd done a lot of her own research and looked online and and and kind of had an idea of how Medicare plans worked, and she knew what supplemental plans were. And so she had a guy who everybody kind of generally used in her area as a local agent. Came to her house, sat down at her table, started talking about the Hawaii localized Medicare Advantage Plan and how uh this is a great plan and all this stuff about it. Then she goes, uh, well, what about the supplemental plans? And he kind of dropped his face a little and reached down into his bag next to him and pulled out another piece of paper and laid it down and started, you know, yeah, you can do that, and started kind of explaining that and everything. And she goes, Well, at the end of everything, she's like, Well, what would you choose for yourself? And he goes, She goes, He told me, he told me really quietly, he goes, I choose the supplemental plant between the two. And it's like, Oh, so you were pushing this on me. Yeah, but you didn't even bring that up to me. Yeah, he he she had to bring it up for him to bring it out, and then he ended up completely losing confidence in her because he said, I wouldn't take what I was offering you. And so that's why she called us. And so we got obviously got the supplemental all set up. But that's a prime example of if you don't ask the right questions. Sometimes you don't you don't know even what's offered to you. And how many times do we get people who call in who say, I just learned about these supplemental. I've been on Medicare for six years and I've been having all these problems that at that have with my insurance companies. If I just would have gotten on, can I get on a supplemental now? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes no. Depends on your health.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Aaron Powell Talk to me about you know talking to friends. You know, because a lot of people and we we all talk to friends about everything. Like this isn't just insurance related. If I'm gonna make an investment, I'm gonna talk to a friend, if I'm gonna buy a house, I'm gonna talk to somebody else who's maybe bought and sold a few houses. Like the talking to your friends is normal. And it's not to be like discouraged, but I think there are some things to consider. So part of those are the things. Yeah, armchair experts, as we go.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

You know, like people who they think they know, or my friend told me I'm gonna be penalized, I gotta get on Medicare at 65 even though I'm still working. I just I just know that I have to do that because one person told you. And and we we live in a a community where um we're not gonna get by very far if we don't trust the people around us. It's just it's just the it goes all the way back to the beginning, you know, how of how we are. We have to trust our community. But uh these things are more complex than ever before. And so you can't just go with the somebody who did something a certain way. I always tell people rules have changed.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Rules have changed drastically the last five years.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, and and your situation compared to your neighbor down the street with their finances, the zip code they live in, their people are living in their house, their overall technical. The meds, the doctors. Everyone's situation is different and unique, and there is no one size fits all when it comes to choosing this stuff. And you can't have somebody offering you one plan and saying, everyone gets this one, this is the one you should be on. Yeah. And more often than not, because of our own personal experiences, we'll say, hey, this has worked for me really well. It's probably gonna work for you too. That's a common thing we're always gonna do. We want to look out for the people who care for us, and we're gonna offer them what was offered to us. But once again, that's we're not they're not licensed people. They don't know the ins and outs of what's changed in the last five years of Medicare. They just know with what they know. And it's okay to take their stuff with a grain of salt, but know that that's you can ask, you can say, hey, that's great. I'm gonna write it down and I'm gonna ask my agent about what you said. That's a great way to do it. Like I say, now you can validate what they said and verify if it's right for you and not just for that person.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

We even, I mean, it's interesting. I've gotten to the point where if we call Social Security, we call Medicare, like I always make, you know, if if if it's something that feels wrong to me, we're gonna call in and we're gonna get it from a different person. And oftentimes, even at the government level, those answers change. Because it is a big complication. There's 70 million people on it, there's four million starting new every year. Like there's just a lot of different intricacies. Um, how about using HR departments or your benefits person as a resource? Talk to me about that.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Once again, not experts on Medicare. I mean, they know a lot about their their you'd think they would know a lot about the insurance in their company and how how to set up things before and after and retirement things, but a lot of them will deal with uh the 35, 45-year-old people who are coming in and out of their company and how to deal with their stuff, not necessarily the 65 stuff. And because things change so constantly, if you just live in a bubble and you don't you're not getting recertified every year with Medicare, you don't know the rules that are changing. And so the advice that's given can be that they're giving to a 45-year-old is not the same advice they need to give to a 65 plus. Very, very different. And so they just because they work for the company, just because they're on top of that department, doesn't mean that they're an expert. And that's and they guess just like you said in Medicare and Social Security, you call them, you're gonna get different answers from different people you talk to because the education level is not the same. Why do we get a second opinion when we go to a doctor? Because not every doctor has the same knowledge. Some are better than others when it comes to they I've dealt with this before, or I've read this research paper, and some have said, Yeah, I've seen that before. I don't think there's anything I can do with that. And it's just you, that's why you always ask.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

I think one thing to be careful of, you know, as as you're trying to choose who to work with, is don't allow yourself to be rushed. And in order to do that, you do need to understand kind of your enrollment timeline, right? So there's a couple of things that that come to mind. Um the first one would be if if you're retiring maybe around the end of the year or the beginning of the year, you know, March, February, March, somewhere in there. During at the end of the year is what's called the annual enrollment period, AEP. And a lot of people think that if they're gonna start Medicare in January, February, March, that they've got to get this done by you know 12-7 because that's the deadline. And that's not actually true. That only applies to people who are currently on a plan that want to get into a new plan, right? That's generally what that's for. It's not this whole, this whole uh, you know, it's not for people who are just starting Medicare for the first time. So don't allow yourself some of this urgency that happens. Understand your things like your initial enrollment period. Like you have three months before you turn 65 the month of, and three months after to go ahead and get enrolled in those benefits. Once you start Part B, you have six months in order to get a Medicare supplement plan in place without qualifying or change it if you make a decision. So just be careful about like agents will try to put these like scare tactics and this urgency. So understand your enrollment timeline. You can call in, we'd be happy to give that to you and not even sell you. Like it does, it doesn't matter. Like you need to know some of these things.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

And I tell people on the phone too, when they call and they say, I I they're really apprehensive. They're really not maybe don't know us quite that well, but they were, you know, they heard about us some way and they say, I just I don't want to be sold something. I don't want this to be a sales call. And I tell them, I said, listen, if you start to hear anything about sales, if I'm trying to push something on you, please hang up the phone. Yeah. I have not had somebody hang up on me yet. So like I said, we are all about education. We want to make sure people understand how this stuff works. Yes, that's how we keep the lights on. Of course, we get you know paid from the insurance companies to help you, to help you not just enroll, but to help you manage this for the rest of your life. That's what we do here. We we are not a to be able to enrollment uh service. I don't just enroll you in a plan you never hear from me again. Our job is to help you manage this for the rest of your life. I just turned 39 in May. I'm gonna be here much longer than you ever need me. That's what I tell people. I'm gonna be here for a very, very long time.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Okay, let's talk to Ruth in Mississippi. Ruth, welcome to Medicare School Daily. What questions do you have for us?

SPEAKER_04 16:00

Good morning, Josh. This is Ruth. Um basically I'm newly retired and I'm moving from Minnesota to Mississippi. Um not eligible for Medicare okay, for Medicare until later this year, because I turned 65 in December, and I'll set that up through your associate Isaac Alfonso at that point for the plan year 2027. Okay. My question is is it going to be a problem or an issue utilizing uh plan A versus G or either one? If I pay my premium based on my residence letter B here in Mississippi for the 2027 plan year, but I still see my general practitioner in Minnesota until I've established a care team here in Mississippi and have my health records transferred.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Yeah. And this is uh Evan Cruz. Yeah, I'm here on the show with Josh here today. So yeah, I can answer that for you. So yeah, it's uh it's nationwide coverage. Yeah, so your plan in that you get there in Mississippi is gonna work anywhere in the country, no matter where your doctor is, and it's not gonna have a difference when it comes to because there's no network, so you can see anybody you want, it's not gonna affect your premiums or anything like that. Um you literally go wherever you want. And ideally, because you're moving to Mississippi, as soon as I you said that from Minnesota, that is a huge uh positive in your your favor, because it's a lot cheaper in Mississippi for Medicare than Minnesota by a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

Yeah, people don't think of moving to Mississippi to retire, I understand.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

But uh I mean it's definitely warmer. Uh yeah, much colder, especially in the winter.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yeah, but no, you're you're good. Yeah. So if you're gonna continue to see your general prediction there in Minnesota for a long period of time, totally fine. You can see them as long as you want. Um your your plan's gonna cover you anywhere in the country, so you're good on that.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

Yeah, I guess like during the summer or something, if I go back and there's a crisis or need for some reason, it won't be an issue of going back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

They won't see that this the insurance plan is being serviced mostly in Minnesota for a few months or something. Okay. That is the beauty of a Medicare supplemental plan. If you go with a Medicare Advantage plan, now you're gonna be limited to the confines of that network. And oftentimes those networks are regional. Medicare supplement plans have no network. As long as the doctor accepts Medicare, they don't care where in the United States it is. It's just all gonna be billed the same.

SPEAKER_04 18:27

Do you know if Minnesota has more apt to have that I guess it's that supplemental billing thing that it's under plan N, you would have to be responsible for I understand the Coke A portion, but I'm referring to the other the excess charge, yeah. No Yes, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Now they can't Yeah, they can do it in Mississippi. Um and you know, most states out there do allow the excess charge, but it is it is pretty rare. About one percent of medical doctors nationwide can charge that. But you can also look ahead on Medicare.gov. It'll tell you immediately if a doctor charges excess. And if they do, you can avoid that doctor. But I usually like you wanna you have your doctor's name? I can just look it up.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

Oh, uh back in Minnesota through health partners, yes, but I have nothing kicked out here because I don't know what uh insurance company is gonna cover what that's uh here at all. That's that's you know, so I can't, but you're saying Medicare.gov, it would list the doctors. I mean, I have clinics and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

But uh Yeah, there's uh just on med on Medicare.gov and here's I don't know if you got your pen and your paper nearby. Absolutely. Yeah, so you're gonna just write down accept assignment. So somebody, a doctor who accepts assignment, Medicare assignment means they say, you know, whatever Medicare is gonna pay me, I'm going to accept that assignment as payment in full. So you can just go into your Google, type in Medicare.gov, assign doctors that accept assignment, and it'll pull up right on Medicare.gov. You can put in their name and their zip code, and it'll tell you whether or not that doctor, that clinic, or that hospital or whatever it is accepts assignment.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

And hospitals will. And I know Minnesota doesn't charge excess charges either. So you can as long as you're seeing doctors up there, you know for sure you're not gonna run into one. So Minnesota doesn't allow excess charges. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 20:16

Even specialists? Even specialists, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yep. Anywhere in the state. Okay. And again, it's less than there's different numbers thrown around, two, three percent. It's very rare that doctors will charge this excess, but sometimes it happens. We talked to somebody yesterday, or maybe it was Justin, was sharing the story of uh she the lady was getting infusions, they were thirty thousand dollars a piece, and she got you know got it from uh you know her normal doctor, he accept assignment, whatever it was, and everything was good. Well, that doctor had a trip and he was gonna be in Peru or something for a month, and so it coincided when when she had to get an infusion and it was administered by another doctor at another place, he was the substitute, and that guy charged excess, and she got a four thousand dollar excess charge bill. This is crazy. I'd I'd yeah, because so it was like uh kind of a one-off thing, but there's not a whole lot she can do about it. So it's just a good practice. Like if you have something that's gonna be expensive happening, make sure they accept assignment. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

As much as you can. And and in some states, yeah, the tip makes it makes a lot more sense to do an N than a G. But I usually say if it's pretty close, $20, $30 difference between G and N, and you don't want to worry about that excess charge or worry about what if in the future you got to see six doctors eight times a month for a whole bunch of crazy stuff going on with you. You just want to avoid the co-pays, it's just less exposure going to a G. But if it's a big enough difference and you're reasonably healthy, don't go that often. Ns do make a lot of sense in a lot of states to do those. There's nothing wrong with doing Ns too. It just kind of depends on your situation and um and what's what's important to you and what you can afford. And and Isaac will help you with that when you talk to him as well.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

Okay, sure, sure. The other thing is is it better to go with an insurance company that's based on what they call community pricing version?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

versus age uh thing because it seems like when you get older they charge more tend to go up more and uh so my personal take on that one um is they're all gonna raise your rates regardless of uh how they list it how they uh put it down on paper that they're gonna do they're gonna if they lose money they're gonna go to the insurance commissioner they're gonna say we lost money we want to raise our rates this much more so this is kind of shows you a base of what they would typically do but it doesn't care it's no guarantee of rate increases they're all gonna go up as you get older. I could pitch to you all three ways and convince you that each way that is the best um depending on how I wanted to say it. And that's kind of the point. That's kind of the point. I mean they want to do it they want to pitch it a way that they want to to make it seem like this one's better than another and to go with theirs. But in the end there's no guarantee if we knew which one was going to be the lowest rate in 10 years everybody would be on that plan. Easy choice.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

But we don't know we can't predict the future but do you have a chart or something that has something tracked say for the last five years of certain companies that are offered that tend to not do significant jumps because there are larger plant programs recommended I guess. I mean I know you it's still ultimately my choice but you know you guys certainly have probably done the analysis and tracked you know who have all these companies that have had the maybe the least overall difficult.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

And we use that as a as a metric to definitely help when it comes to that. But in the end I have a lot of engineers too who will ask me I want the data. I want to know all the details of every company and how long they've produced rates of the past five, ten years and I want to and and thinking that if you dig in hard enough into the data and the details that you'll come up with an answer that nobody else will. But in the end, what I like to say is it's almost more art than science when it comes to choosing these policies which they don't like to hear a lot of times they want to hear that it's a hard number basis. But like I said if there was a way of of dissecting the numbers to give you an absolute guarantee then everyone would do that.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Let me give you like an example. No within the top three yeah yeah let me give you an example of why and everybody wants premium stability. We want premium stability we want premium stability a little bit selfishly because we want you to be on this plan for a long time and tell all your friends about how great we are so they all come and buy a policy from us. So we we we we want the same thing as you sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to predict and there are things that happen outside of our control your control the insurance carrier's control as well. And so let me give you an example rate increases have been a little bit higher than normal the last couple of years. So our number one carrier for years and I can't say its name because if I say the the insurance carrier's name they would call us and say take this video down. So uh but their their number the the number one carrier for premium stability said they had a 21 year record of 2.9% rate increase. That's great right sounds great. Then the last two or three years they've had 15 and 20% rate increases and it's not really their fault. It's not really their fault. Now the market has been resetting right now the last three years there's been like a reset in the Medicare marketplace. For a long time like we're talking 10-15 years the premium in 20 in 2015 was about the same as what you were you know a new person would be starting 10 years later. There wasn't a whole lot of inflation on these things. But what happened in the group plan market okay so this is where I'm saying this isn't even the insurance company this is an external factor on group plans employer provided group plans um those deductibles have been raising okay so and those premiums have been raising and so what we've seen in how that's in fact affected it is a lot of people are not getting their joint replacements done. They're not getting their big things done until they go on Medicare. Because if they do it on their employer plan, it's a $5,000 deductible they're gonna be five or six, $7,000 out of their pocket. But if they wait until they're on Medicare, get a plan G, it's a $283 deductible. So if you're if your doctor's like hey, you know, you need to get this done in the next two or three years, what are you going to do? Do it now or you're just probably going to wait until you go on Medicare. And so what that's caused because of the increase in deductibles on in employer group plans, it's caused really high utilization whenever on Medicare the last two or three years when people start Medicare, they go get all of their big stuff done because it doesn't cost them anything. And so that is an example of how something outside of the insurance company's control, all of our control, an external factor has made these price increases on Medicare supplements go up the last two or three years. Now we are kind of peaking right now. We don't expect that to continue. We expect it to get to much more normal but that's just an example. There's no crystal ball and I could have said hey this plan's gone up 2.9 percent for the last 20 years. Let's do that. That's the number one plan carrier and you would have gotten it wrong. So uh not to sew a bunch of fear or other things but what we do recommend all of this to say don't go with a fly by night insurance carrier. There are insurance carriers out there I talked to somebody yesterday it was a company in Pennsylvania had a few thousand members and he was like I can get a discount if I bundle this with my home and auto and I was like yeah but there's no one on that plan. So when they get hit with a lot of claims what do you think is going to happen? That premium is going to go up. So instead we want to go with a big insurance carrier because they are going to stay in line with the market and they're not going to outpace right if the whole if everybody's taking a 10% rate increase there's nothing you can do about that. Right? But what you don't want is these one offs oh I'm with a small insurance carrier and they took the market was moving up 7% and they took a 15 right because they had claims so go with a big name brand insurance carrier there's going to be variation some years they're gonna be better some years they're gonna be a little bit worse. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Absolutely plus do some of these companies that do the fly by nights or might be cheaper for a little while go away and then you're scrambling to have to find another carrier or have to reapply or go through health questions at that point.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

It's yours for life right they can't cancel you. Every once in a while an insurance it's very rare an insurance company will go into something that's called receivership basically the state walks in and says hey we're gonna manage this block of business and we're gonna find a bigger insurance carrier to basically buy you and they force that to happen. So that's yours for as long as you want. But a lot of people every four or five years as long as your health stays okay they just simply switch policies. You go into a younger block of people healthier you know that the premiums might be a little more rate stable. So you got to pick a Medicare supplement knowing hey this this very well may be something that's gonna last me a long time. But you know if something happens we'll help you switch. And that's when you work with us we'll always help you switch.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Right. And I and I kind of I like to visualize it as insurance is a gigantic slowly spinning wheel. And at some point someone's gonna be on top at some point they're gonna close their books and they're gonna be on the bottom and it's gonna come around again. There's no one who's always going to remain on top there's just always going to be the best carrier out there. So we can make like I said good educated decisions that'll last a very long time to the best of our knowledge and we'll do like I said it's in our best interest to help you as make you as happy as long as possible. The longer you're happy the longer we're happy. Everybody wins.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

But if we changes have to be made we'll make the changes whenever we can absolutely and do you know when they're going to be having the new 2027 rates out there to be able to look for that for the state for Mississippi. When do they those typically come out of course at the end of the year or are they available now?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Well so there's a common misconception that uh that a lot of people have which is that Medicare supplements are rated based upon a calendar year. Like what's the 2026 rate? What's the 2027 what's the 2028 and those come out you know in time for January 1st. That's not how it works. Most premiums are just you buy it when you buy it, right? And then they will take a price increase generally about 12 months later. Most price increases happen sometime between March and July. So it's not really a January 1st thing. So you can you can you can get a quote um and you know once you kind of lock it in you should be pretty comfortable with that. It does not operate on a calendar year basis.

SPEAKER_04 30:21

Okay. I just didn't know if I signed up you know like in December to be effective January 1st if those rates would be available if I went out today.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Uh like I say you know probably yeah probably there's probably not going to be that but it's hard to say I mean there's 40 different insurance carriers they operate all slightly differently but generally we tell people you know somewhere between three to six months in advance if there's a price increase there's a price increase. If that happens you know you have six months in your Medigap OEP which is jargon but you know you can switch. So I wouldn't be too concerned about that. I understand your concern but they just don't don't generally they generally they just all happened like they just kind of all wrapped up March to June July.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

More often than not more often than not when we enroll though like three to six months like that I I rarely if ever I mean have to call somebody and say hey by the way your rates went up before we went into effect. I mean I can't even think of an example of that happening. So usually if you know like if you talk to Isaac and he gives you rates for say January it's probably gonna be that rate for January. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:26

All right. Well thank you both I appreciate the time and effort that you guys took to explain in detail uh my probably more than you cared to know no no no a former accountant I wanted to know all these details so yes I'm very analytical to you like you said you make a one time decision you're pretty much stuck with it so you want to make sure you make the right one.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Yes importantly okay Ruth take care thank you we've got a caller uh Mary in Arizona let's talk to Mary welcome to Medicare School Daily what questions do you have for us hi uh okay so the question I have is I I'm retired and I have the F H E B or whatever you call that uh government insurance. I have Blue Cross Blue show basic and I have uh Aetna Advantage that your company had me go on. I mean I chose to go on that but they gave me these options. And um yeah so what happened was is if I go to the doctor and Aetna pays, you know, I have to make sure that the doctor I go to is on Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Okay so I have to do that and I'm always make sure to do that in whatever hospital if I have to so what happens is when Aetna pays the provider uh then uh the provider sends supposed to send the uh EOBs of of Aetna to Blue Cross Blue Shield so they don't know what to pay. Well what happened was if uh I kept getting for the last two and a half years I've been on it uh there's sometimes been a myth of Blue Cross Blue Shield says we gotta get they say that they have to get the information of the EOBs from Aetna or from the provider but they don't seem to have it. So I had a three-way call and I had Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and myself on and what had happened was uh they uh the Blue Cross Blue Shield said since I'm on an advantage for some reason the plan doesn't clearly get through to Blue Cross Blue Shield but then uh oh she says oh yeah I see that the provider sent me a digital thing and found it so I don't know why it's so difficult for them to uh do that and it's been a hassle and I almost thought maybe I should just go on a supplement and so forth. I don't know if uh going on a supplement and just forgetting about my Blue Crust Blue Shield. I don't know because the Blue Cross Blue Shield has the prescription drug coverage and so Aetna takes $110 every month off of my plan B because they don't have to play. So there's a lot of confusion going on there and I don't know if it's better to go just pick a supplement. I'm healthy my husband's healthy so we'll be able to get anything you know I mean on a uh supplement if we need to so I need your information what you're so I just just kind of want to kind of restate what I what I heard just to make sure we got it.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

So uh primarily there seems to be some maybe some issues between like Blue Cross is getting some of these electronically but they're not processing them. So you're having to do a little legwork to make sure that coordination and the payment of everything actually happens. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

And so you're saying maybe this isn't worth the hassle maybe I should just forego all of this let's get a Medicare supplement like a plan N or a plan G or something. Uh but the problem is if you do that then you would lose that um Medicare Advantage plan what we call a give back which is $110 that that Medicare Advantage plan is is basically crediting uh you know it so your Part B premium instead of being $20290 is maybe like $90.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

So that's kind of the drop correct and right and the Blue Cross Blue Shield basic gives us $800 it gives me $800 for the whole year toward plan B just because you're really kind of getting part B for free. So you're saving something like well about $26 I'm paying no big deal. It's not $105 or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

You're saving nine almost ninety percent of the cost of part B. So for you I think the question is is you know you know that you you would lose the $800 credit right from Blue Cross and Blue Shield you lose the the uh whatever's that $1400 credit or something $1300 credit from the advantage plan is that and then you'd have to swing the other direction and then you'd get a supplement plan, right? So then there you'd have maybe $100, $120 a month there. So is like a thirty six hundred dollar swing worth these extra hoops you're kind of having to go through to make sure that everything the bills are getting? And that's a question only you can answer because I don't know your finances. I don't I don't know if for me I'd probably be like I don't want to hassle with any of this so yeah that would be worth it but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

And I calculate that too when I'm looking at those majority of the time depending on where people are in the States I would say the supplement makes more sense than even going the other way. Because you do are you're paying for the basic two for the what are you paying for that about $200 isn't it right about $200 a month for each of you approximately for the blue cross you mean about my my you mean the FEHP program I $300 a month each.

SPEAKER_03 36:49

300 a little over six hundred yeah for both of us I'm sorry I had not calculated and they give my husband eight hundred toward the plan B on the blue cross blue shield that we chose. Right. Because that's the one we chose.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Does he have the money does he have the advantage plan as well yes with the $110 a month give back?

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

It starts to get close because the cost of the FEHB um if you were and even with the $800 and the give back and everything the the you live in Arizona too by the way which are pretty decent rates. They're not the highest or the lowest in the country Arizona is actually pretty good. So when you start looking at G's and N's and the actual price that you're spending per month out of pocket um it's going to be probably around I want to say about $350 if we're including A, B, D, G, like all your letters and everything be a pretty rough estimate probably what that would be compared to the uh $300 plus the two oh two ninety minus the discounts you're getting for the $800 and the uh the other um give back. So you're talking once again fairly close between those two within $100 per month on those. So then is it yeah is it worth it to not deal with the uh networks or deal with any uh co-pays or deal with the uh uh the changing nature of these the advantage plans every year and most of the time the answer is yes. Uh I do uh once once we do go through the numbers and everything with people, a lot of times the supplements just make more sense and good riddance to the FEHB. It was good while I had it and it took care of me but the the Medicare is just going to have a lower cost. It's gonna be a lot simpler it's just going to be easier. If you live in certain states Florida, New York Connecticut some places that are really expensive and maybe you're taking a whole bunch of really insanely high medications that are just covered by your plan, these are different factors that everyone has to calculate in when making these decisions for themselves and we will we'll calculate that in to see if it makes sense but reasonably not taking craze too many crazy stuff and not in an expensive state Medicare just wins most of the time even with that $800 credit.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

It can come out to be and I like the hospital benefits of the I like the hospital benefits of the Medicare uh you know uh like say plan G. I like that because you don't have to worry you know you can go to the doctor's 100 times but I wouldn't I don't hardly go with my well check it but if you had to when you're older or whatever uh you know you just have that a 280 or whatever it is okay and then it takes care of it. Uh if someone said that the plan G um uh that some employer this is what I saw on YouTube but that some employer uh you know uh dumped all the people in their big huge uh uh company on plan G and so I was uh they said that it might be better to do plan N. So I don't know. But I you guys like plan G and I do too. Either I don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

I like N too yeah. Yeah neither of them are bad. Yeah it's it depends once again your state and the situation and and the price difference between G and N can be dramatic in some states and very, very small in others. And if it's really small a difference then it's not worth the exposure going to an N. If it's a big difference and you're pretty healthy not going that often and want to save money gr Ns are great. Nothing wrong with those two. So really really good options there um in and in in your state as well but like I said just kind of n hashing out the numbers and what's important to you and what you can afford is really how we decide ultimately when it comes to that. But I said the majority of the time FEHB over the past five years has changed so significantly that it's not as desirable as original Medicare in most cases. I'll just say it's a general blanket.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Trevor Burrus Five years ago that probably wasn't the case it wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah five years ago would have been different. Your deductibles, your costs of it were a lot were a lot less and the people were much more inclined to stay on that one. But the the the verbiage, the rhetoric hasn't changed. People who've left the federal government they're told you leave this, you'll never get it back. We got you covered, we'll take care of you forever. But you know people who work for the government know one thing. When you work for the government you're a number when you leave the government you're still a number. In the end they're still making money off of you. It's not a a a charity through FEHB it is an insurance program that they make money off of you just as much as anyone else. And so it's not really like it just because it's offered to you because you work there and it's exclusive doesn't mean that it's better than what Medicare can give you.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

Okay. I just don't I don't like I don't have to pay anything and I'm getting all these perks like from Vetna. Right. So that's kind of nice but when I get old uh a lot older and if I need some real heavy duty help like my if I pass away before my husband he's got a he doesn't like to deal with insurance so Medicare would be a lot easier uh you know plan G to take care of it.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

It would be you know there will be less issues that's for sure. Why don't you stop jumping over these hoops why don't you do this I'm gonna give you our office number unless you have it. Why don't you call in um and then we can just see if maybe going on a supplement plan makes sense. Give you the prices.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

Josh could you have could you possibly call me I I've talked to you have very good people but I really like the way you have all this knowledge and stuff. Is it possible you could I could talk to you or how does that work we'll give you a call for sure or your agent of record.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Do you know who helped you when we helped you I'm sorry what was that do you do you remember the name of the agent who helped you who works here? Not really I'm sorry I have to look it up but I could look it up we can look it up too and see and we we can have somebody contact you either way that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah I I think laying this all side by side in the way and actually Evan was the one who's with me on the show. He's he was actually doing all the talking not me. Yeah yeah yeah we're we're both we're both doing it. But yeah no we will reach out to you and we'll we'll see if there's a a better way to do it. Because now the the thing is is right now is not actually the right time you would have to come off of that advantage plan uh during the fourth quarter of the year and then all of this would start January 1st. It's around the corner. Yeah so it's a couple of so we could schedule what we could do is schedule deployment for like Octoberish and then that would be the time to do it. If we did it now it would be too early. Okay?

SPEAKER_03 43:04

Because you can't just I I have right but I think I could just leave the advantage plan because if I did then I just have the regular A and B situation I'm in.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

True I chose at only downside of that is the problem is it's the prescription. Yeah you're right exactly picking that up with the right electric code it's not it's not impossible.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

You're right so I gotta wait.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

I gotta wait. Yep now you're right yeah say I'll just say the safest thing is to wait. I mean there's like I said there's there's a bunch of asterisks on that uh on uh certain situations but I'll generally say yeah I agree with Josh there yeah we want to wait till the end of the year if we can yeah okay oh so yeah so we're gonna follow we'll follow up okay we'll get we'll get something scheduled for you're kind of you're kind of leaning from your the opinion I you're kind of leaning like why don't you just forget all the messes and messes and just go off I mean supplement if it's affordable and it makes sense easier life.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

Yeah absolutely easier life paying the money anyway probably worth a hundred bucks a month yeah yeah you know my husband and I are playing six a little over six hundred for both of us as a supplement uh to Aetna. So you know I mean even though it's uh you know from the post office. Once I do though I'll never be able to get back to the post office but that's okay because it's been a hassle to me anyway.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Then that's what I say normally too it's kind of a good riddance thing in most cases. It's it it was fine while you had it but Medicare you paid into that you know your whole life too and um it's it's what it's designed for and it does a really really good job.

unknown 44:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Okay Mary we're gonna record your information and we'll reach out okay thank you so much bye bye thanks bye you have probably heard of this thing called a Medicare Advantage plan trial right and if you haven't it's something that you should at least be a little bit aware of it allows people to be able to make some switches try some plans and kind of extend their opportunity to get a Medicare supplement plan. However it is fraught with danger tomorrow's episode you're gonna learn how to navigate through it if that's something that's right for you but more importantly the danger that you may face if you try to do this trial right most people do it to save money. So join us tomorrow you're gonna learn all about the Advantage plan trial write