What do you got?

Oh, boy.

Have one just this morning.

First application we submitted of the morning.

A lady had moved into town on a Medicare Supplement plan, like this lady, I presume, has.

Uh, she had been on a Plan F since she was 65.

She's 72.

How do, how do veterans fit into all of this?

You know I love success

stories.

Sure.

What do you got? Oh, boy.

Have one just this morning.

First application we submitted of the morning.

A lady had moved into town on a Medicare supplement plan, like this lady, I presume, has.

But they ultimately just don't really know.

What is it that we need to know right now?

Yeah, it's a great question, Bob.

Uh, what everyone needs to know is, irregardless of what type of plan you're on, whether that's a Medicare Advantage plan or a prescription drug plan or a Medicare Supplement plan, all of those plan types can be changed October 15th through December 7th.

And especially Medicare Advantage plans, those plans run from January 1st through December 31st of every year.

So when they renew, medications may be covered or not that were last year.

Doctors may be covered or not that were last year.

So we certainly encourage people to review their coverage because what may have worked well or been great last year may not necessarily by default do the same for you this year.

If you like your coverage from this year, and you really don't wanna change anything, do you have to do anything during AEP?

What is it that we need to know right now?

Yeah, it's a great question, Bob.

What everyone needs to know is, irregardless of what type of plan you're on, whether that's a Medicare Advantage plan or a prescription drug plan or a Medicare supplement plan, all of those plan types can be changed October 15th through December 7th.

And especially Medicare Advantage plans, those plans run from January 1st through December 31st of every year.

So when they renew, medications may be covered or not.

That were last year.

Doctors may be covered or not.

If you like your coverage from this year and you really don't want to change anything, do you have to do anything

What do you need folks to start doing now if they think or maybe they don't know if they need to make any changes to Medicare coverage for next year?

Yeah, it's a great question.

You know, what we recommend folks do is every year you want to look and make sure that you're getting what you need, put simply.

Whether that's the most comprehensive coverage, whether that's an additional benefit, whether that's maybe I got to save money, I got to cut somewhere.

You know, what's a plan that I could get similar to mine that might save me some money, right? We're getting asked that question a lot.

What I would recommend, if you're going to call Senior Benefit this annual enrollment period, what we would ask very simply is have a list of your medications and the doctors that you frequently use.

Depending on the type of plan that you choose or the type of plan that you want to look at, that may be information we need.

Is it a little late in the game to be saying, oh, we're not going to carry this policy anymore? Or is there time to make this happen between now and, what is it, early December where the AEP runs out?

Okay, so you can have a general conversation right now, but you need to wait until the, the, the new plans come out and really have that detailed conversation.

Yeah.

So what most people wanna know is, "Are my benefits changing? Are my prescriptions still covered? Are my doctors still covered? What's it gonna cost?" Et cetera, et cetera.

And all of that will be on the new plans.

So I mean, i- if you're new to Medicare or if you have general questions, obviously, we're happy, uh, to talk to you and have those conversations.

But if it's specific benefits, specific costs, network availability, any types of questions like that certainly are gonna wanna be discussed after October 1st.

Am I missing anything? Is there something else we need to be discussing regarding what you guys do at SBI?

No.

Um, there was something else that we had discussed.

Yeah, all I, all, yeah, all I would say, we had mentioned, uh, during the break, is, is we- we're getting ...

There is more and more people, and this is not new, but more and more people are working past 65, right? A- and it's just, quite frankly, it's becoming more common to work past 65 than it is to retire at 65, it seems.

I mean, just in experience.

I don't say that from data.

But anyway, we get a lot of people that call us that say, "I'm turning 65, I'm still working," or, "I'm retired, I'm covered on my spouse's insurance who's still working.

Do I need Medicare? Will it benefit me? Is Medicare gonna be primary?" Is ...

When are you gonna know about next year's changes to Medicare? How soon is that?

Folks are concerned about what?

Yeah, so it seems to kind of be a trend, Bob, as we're having more and more folks that are working beyond 65 these days.

We're dealing with more and more people that are still in the workforce at 65, right? And it seems like a lot of the information that's out there says that folks go on Medicare when they're 65, and if you're beyond 65 and you're not on Medicare, there's not really much information about what you should do, what you shouldn't do, etc., For those individuals that are post-65 and they are either still working and on a group insurance plan or on a spouse group insurance plan, you have options.

That's what we want people to understand.

you may have the option to remain on Medicare, stay on that group insurance plan.

You may have the option to go to Medicare and maybe get better benefits and or save money, right? So what we want to tell folks, if that individual is you, if you're over 65, you're still working, maybe your spouse is still working, and you're just wondering, should you have Medicare? What would Medicare offer me? Could I get Medicare? Give us a call.

You don't necessarily have to have it in some cases.

In some