What Do You Tell Clients About Medicare?

[BobKamman]

I don’t watch cable TV, but I spent this weekend in a hotel room where it was available. So I noticed all the Medicare advertising during this open enrollment period. Made me wonder how these companies advertise in Georgia, where they are still competing with political ads.

What do you tell your clients about Medicare enrollment? I tell them it’s hard enough to keep up with tax law, I don’t advise on insurance. But I have seen enough clients having problems with Medicare Advantage plans that I tell those turning 65 to know what they are buying. Now I think I’ll also suggest they think about who is paying for all that advertising.

Medicare Advantage may be a good choice for low-income retirees. What I see, though, are wealthier clients with a combination of Depression-baby mentality about pinching pennies, and a conviction that they will never get sick. Along with this you find those who keep part B but don’t sign up for Part D, because they don’t need any prescriptions for now and they don’t know the cost goes up the longer they wait. Also, that a lot of chemotherapy is considered prescription medication.

[qbteachmt]

I tend to review with my clients all their money functions and needs, such as umbrella coverage, E&O, business auto insurance, key employee, medical and retirement (I do benefit planning), investment management, vendor accounts, even business purchase and selling evaluations. A lot of these are because I realized no one else was working with my small business bookkeeping students as an overall perspective, trying to get themselves into business or stay in business or break through an expansion bottleneck.

Local resources are available pretty much everywhere. We have local classes provided by the County Aging Services (a Federally funded program in all counties, by the way, and ours just got a tax mill levy passed for additional support) and they include a reference manual for the year you qualify, and they review all the options. I sent my spouse and that provided enough info for me without having to attend the class, to counsel my clients:

https://missoulaagingservices.org/get-help/medicare-finances/medicare-medicaid-assistance.html

We also had a couple of one-day conferences with workshops over the years sponsored by our State insurance commissioner, which I attended the local one, with breakout sessions for financial topics, provided by the State and in conjunction with MSU (Bozeman) extension office (example):

http://www.mtmfec.org/penny-money-matters-for-montana-women-conference-in-billings/

The MSU extension people are amazing. They provide online access to resources and recordings and web-based sessions and you can sign up and get email schedules, all free:

https://www.montana.edu/extension/solidfinances/pastrecordings.html

Back in the dark ages when I worked for a legacy State minerals, metals, extraction and refining company (which became part of ARCO, now part of BP), a coworker told me about an MSU offering where they mailed Q&A and survey packets every week and you did home study. Basically a personal finance course. I would not be where I am today if not for these resources.

There is one from 2021 for Medicare, at that site.

Marketplace just released some great info on this, because it is open enrollment:

https://www.marketplace.org/2022/12/05/whats-the-difference-between-traditional-medicare-and-medicar...

I listen to NPR and a lot of podcasts:

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/how-advantageous-is-the-private-option-...

Cable TV is Ad-driven, so you know it's biased.

[IRonMaN]

I tell all of my clients to ignore your trusted insurance advisor and go watch TV commercials to learn about what they should do regarding health insurance coverage.  I also tell them to ignore their trusted medical professional when it comes to healthcare.  Just sit in front of that TV and learn what color pill is best for what ails you.  I'm not really sure what Americans did before all of these helpful commercials started appearing on the airwaves 😬

[Terry53029]

@BobKamman FYI I just read an article that the Mayo clinic is advising their clients not to go with an advantage plan, as they are holding up or delaying several procedures