Medicare Deadline Looms

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcoming Chris Grimman to the program from Omaha Insurance Solutions
on this avalanche of Medicare pitches and information. You're getting
a full disclosure I do. I'm a spokesman for Chris
and Omaha Insurance Solutions, but this isn't a commercial. This
is info and Chris, good morning. It's good to have

(00:20):
you on.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Good Morning Gary.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
It is an avalanche, isn't it. At this time of
the year. We've heard all the messages on radio and TV.
Mailboxes fill up. You got to do this, you got
to do that, called me. So I thought with the
deadline looming on Saturday, it would be good to get
the basic information out there because there'll be folks who
have parents and maybe grandparents that aren't sure what to do.

(00:43):
What does annual enrollment amount to, and what is the
key for people to know to do before Saturday.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Medicare Annual Romance starts October fifteenth, runs to December seventh,
which is this Saturday. It's the time for people to
to look at and review their Medicare plan and to
make possibly changes. And the key thing you really want
to look at are your medication. So if you're on

(01:12):
a part D D is in drugs for a prescription
drug plan or Medicare Parts C. C is in cats
for Medicare advantage, which has the drug plan with it.
Usually you want to check your medications to make sure
one they're covered and two they're covered at well the

(01:33):
lowest possible rate for you.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah. Well, the fact of the matter is, as you
well know, there are some probably mostly elderly, that you know,
aren't really computer, letter or whatever. What's the best way
to attack this? Okay, I got to do that, but
I'm not sure how to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, you can call Medicare themselves eight hundred and six
three four two two seven. People don't know this, but
they're open twenty four to seven. They can help you.
We also help our clients and new perspective clients with
their medications. So what we do is people will give

(02:16):
us their medications over the phone or in person or
email them to us. We run them through a software
and it tells us which of the Medicare Part D
plans or Medicare Part C plans would be most advantageous.
I had a gentleman yesterday. He finally called the existing
client ran his medication. He really wanted to stay on

(02:37):
his current drug plan, and it turns out Trilicity, which
is an anti diabetic medication very expensive, wasn't covered And
if you stayed on that plan for twenty twenty five,
he would have ended up paying thousands of dollars. So
we were able to switch him, and I mean it
was down to probably like six hundred dollars for the

(02:58):
entire year versus he would have and if you stayed
on the drug, you wouldn't have done it. It would
have been like four thousand. So it's critical to check
your drugs.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
One of the pitfalls of missing the deadline. But suppose
somebody does nothing, the deadline comes and goes, what are
what is the downside?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, you could be in a situation where your medication
is no longer covered drug plan, or is covered at
a higher chier or the big thing that's happening this
year people probably don't realize because of the Inflation Reduction Act,

(03:41):
they degraded the Medicare advantage plans and one of the
things they added was a deductible to the drug side,
which is really affected the plans. And most of the
plans have gotten this deductor, not all of them, and
we've had to switch literally hundreds of people because the

(04:02):
plan they're on, the medications were you know, two three
four hundred dollars more than on another comparable plan, but
the medications were less. So they'll be finding that out.
If they don't do anything in January and February, it
will be a bit of a shot.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
You know. Part of the message when I do the
messages for you on the Eric Chris, is that you
are a licensed insurance agent. What is the importance of that?
Number one? And number two? I thought all insurance agents
had to be licensed.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Well, you'll have people out there that aren't licensed that
are giving advice and that's definitely not a good thing.
And then also you have to be licensed and appointed
with the various insurance companies. And there's a whole process
you have to go through to get appointed. And what

(04:55):
happens there is when you get appointed with the various
insurance companies, what you said, the training for their various
insurance products so that you can speak in an educated
manner about those products. Otherwise, again, it's misinformation, wrong information,
and it ends up hurting people.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
So to content to go for for folks who want
to have their parents and grandparents, whoever go on Medica
is a Medicare dot gov and.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Medicare dot gov. There's a tool there they can use
to figure out their Part C and Part D plans,
or they can always, of course give us a call.
It Omaha Insurance Solutions.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Very good, Chris, thanks always, thank you Gary Good to
get the info out there. Appreciate it again. That deadline
is Saturday, December the seventh. That's Chris Grimmin on kfab's
Morning News