Behind the Scenes & Medicare Trends: Service, Strategy, and What Clients Need to Know

0:00 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services. Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. That's interesting. Attention to individuals, families and caregivers. It's Medicare Hour and More with Peter right here on k for HD Radio. This is the podcast for all types of insurance solutions while specializing Medicare because we Medicare.

0:47 Here's your host, Peter R. Joseph Hey, Hey. Good morning, good morning, good morning. I'm great to see you guys. This is episode four. We are plugging along on excited about today's episode. We've got some great guests today. Glenn Gerardo is my office administrator. She's a virtual assistant out in the Philippines. She's gonna be coming on shortly. And then we've got Glenn Shelton and Christian Brindle. They are partners and owners of Everything Senior Insurance and lead Heros. They are the reason I'm in this business. They've given me a ton of support. They're also are sponsors, so we're excited to have them on later on.

1:28 I would say Happy. Caesarshavas Day, but obviously that cannot be said anymore if you haven't heard. Unfortunately, he's been abasing girls for years. They found out, and so they are changing that name to Farmer's Day, I believe. So that was a quick quick change. But yes, it is that holiday today, So if you guys are off, I'm glad you guys are taking it easy today. Hopefully you guys are listening in if you're a client of ours, a prospect, an agent, hopefully you get tidbits of nuggets of information that you can use for yourselves. So first up, I am going to have Glenn Gerardo in pretty soon. I think she's going to be hopping on here in a few minutes.

2:16 She's the backbone of our customer service and operations here at Joseph Insurance Broker. If you can't get a hold of me, you'll get a hold of her. We're going to make her number available here as well. When we do interview her, you basically will contact her the same way you contact me. You come on our website. Her email address is a little bit different, but it is going to be Glenn G. L e n n dot administrator at Josephinsurancebroker dot com. So you can email her that way, and then we'll have her phone number up as well. So I will start talking about Medicare Parts C today before we get her on, so hopefully she'll hop on here in a couple of months. So Medicare Parts C, we've talked about.

3:04 The hold on. This is her right now, Give me one second. She's having a hard time, all right, let me get her radio link up. Give me one second, you guys, she's having a hard time get on. So I'm gonna send her this email real quick. Just bear with me, all right, all right, So while I'm trying to get her on, Uh, we've been covering a few things in the last few episodes.

3:49 We did Medicare Parts A, B, C, and D. We did talk about the enrollment periods of Medicare and you know again it's. OK. And then we. Did talk about. How to enroll into Medicare and going into Social Security Office, going on as to say dot gov or actually mailing in which I don't recommend or calling in, which I don't recommend calling in. Right now, social Security staff is understaffed, so you don't want to do that because you'll be waiting on the phone for hours and well, she might not be able to come on here. I don't know what's going on. I'm going to send it to her one more time. All right, So today we're going to talk about what Medicare parts he is, and then we are going to talk about supplements next time as well.

5:00 You kind of talk about the differences, the pitfalls, and the benefits for each side of things. So Medicare Parts C it's also called Medicare Advantage. That is the plan that most folks go in. You know, on our clientele, we've got about eleven hundred clients, I would say about sixty percent on Medicare Advantage. The other forty. Percent are Medicare Supplement. So what's the difference. Well, Medicare Advantage is basically it covers parts A, B, C, and D, so Part C covers everything. It's all in one versus Medicare Supplement. It's like an all a cart system. So that's kind of how you tell the difference. So it's a bundle plan that includes your hospital Part A, your medical Part B, your prescription drugs Part D, and then also offers extra benefits, so like your dental, your vision, your hearing. Sometimes it gives you the over the counter allowance.

6:02 All right, So we're gonna stop there. Glenn is on, so we're gonna bring her on here. Hey Glenn, how are you? Hi? Hi, I'm good. Sorry. I was actually looking for the for the invitation earlier, but then unfortunately it was nice them. I figured, yeah, I know a lot of times it goes into stay out, no problem, no problem. How you doing this morning? I'm good, I'm good. Thank you so much. I so nice to be here. Yeah, I know, we're glad to have you. So Glenn is my office administrator. Like I said earlier, she's the backbone of our customer support. She's the one who makes all the phone calls to set our appointments. Make sure that you guys are doing okay with your plans, make sure you're not missing anything. So Glenn, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, kind of your career, what you did before this?

6:59 Of course, course, Hello, everyone, I'm actually Glenn. I'm of course, I'm thirty five and I'm actually a mom of. Three beautiful kids from Sibi, Philippines. I'm actually a former school head and English teacher for eleven years, so technically this is my first time. This is my first time to be in virtual assistants world. There, awesome, awesome. Have you had a hard time learning this role or has it been easy for you? What kind of things have you actually? Actually no, this is actually the very first time that I'm having this role with you. So for for for from my eleven years as a teacher, it's plainly education background.

7:51 So this is technically my first time to be in a virtual assistance world. Okay, okay, yeah, okay, So do you remember the phone number that people can call you out on our Ring Central app? Do you have that phone number with you by chance? Yeah? Yeah, that is nine O nine Wait one moment, nine O nine. Three two five three eight four zero. Okay, So I'm going to put this as a banner so people can find your information there. Oh right, So. If you want to get a hold of Glenn and you can't get a hold of me, you know her email address is going to show up here just momentarily.

8:37 It's going to be Glenn dot administrator at j Justice Insurance Broker dot com. Her phone number direct is going to be nine oh nine three two five three eight four zero. Glenn is it? I know you're in the Philippines. What's the time over there right now? It's actually twelve am. Oh my goodness, wow wow. So Glenn works hard for us. She's on our time, so whether it's like in the middle of the night, I mean, she's making those. Phone calls and. So. But if you guys have any questions in terms of you know, your plan is missing something, you're not having your ID card. We've been training Glenn on how to reach out to insurance terriers for you on your on your behalf. She has been very helpful to our clients.

9:29 Our clients love the fact that they can get a hold of someone versus just me. So I'm not a one man show here. So, Glenn, is there anything you want to say to our clients? Well with with in terms of this is actually my very first time to be in an insurance company. Yeah, yeah, but you're doing great. You're doing great though I'm in my my my former background is more on education. I just want to ensure you that my it has always been in helping people learn and feel empowered. So just for you to know as I enter this world, it's actually a choice is driven by by by family. So in this insurance with with you, working with you, it's not that different from from teaching. So just like any classroom setting, I'm here to listen of course, so our clients, whether I'm calling a lead or helping a client fix a problem, just like.

10:32 Tyler Jones. Yes, yes, I ring the same educated as patients through every call. So there's that for sure, for sure. And yeah, Glenn does a great job of listening to you guys and walking you through the steps. You know, if she doesn't know anything, she'll check in with me. But she's doing a great job. She's even learning all the things about medicare. We handed her a medica a new handbook, and she's been of setting up on that, understanding the different you know, enrollment periods and what works and what doesn't for people. Right, So Glenn, we appreciate you. Thank you so much for hopping on. I know it's really late there in the Philippines, but fine, all right, So Glenn, this is Glenn. We am glad to see a face to the name. Finally, for our clients that are listening in again, her info is on the bottom scrolling, So if you need to contact her directly for any administrative stuff, if you're not understanding your health plan, you're missing an ID card, you know, you're behind on your premium payments, anything like that, please reach out to her.

11:45 If even if you need to make an appointment with me a reviewer plan, please reach out to her and she'll send an appointment for us. All right, Glenn, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on. Peter, thank you, thank you. All right, we'll talk soon. Take care, Yeah, thank you? Am I all right? Well, I appreciate her coming on at midnight over her time. But that is a little bit about Glenn. Again, a lot of the agencies now do use virtual assistants. Her English is really good, so you know, don't worry about any kind of accents or anything like that. She's very knowledgeable. She's been with us for about six months now and she's done a terrific job helping support our company. And we will probably be bringing on a couple more assistants, one here in the US, as well as another virtual assistant down the road as we continue to grow. All right, so I do want to show you a quick commercial break before we move on. This will just talk about how you can trust our company.

12:53 Frankly, obviously not you, but there are people sadly within your industry who aren't just say, as dependable and trustworthy as others. Exactly why is that so important to make sure that when you're working with someone that you do get someone who is trustworthy and dependable to tell us some of the horror stories if they're not. Well, you definitely want an agent who is knowledgeable in medicare to be in your corner. There have been situations I've heard of from colleagues too. They just try to sell the plan so that they can get their commission and then they basically don't contact them ever again after that point. And with my clients, they are my clients for life. I care imensely about them. I'm always checking in with them, making sure they're doing okay and they're happy with what they've got and if not, then we can switch them over. But there are horror stories of people pretending to be medicare agents getting seniors information and then unfortunately seniors are paying out money that they shouldn't be paying out, so I definitely want to protect them from that. All right, So just a short clip when I first started out, Yes, that was me, believe it or not. I actually have lost one hundred and forty one pounds over nine years. So that was when we first started out. Our business Biz TV Los Angeles wanted to interview me and talk about our successes, and so I hopped on for an interview, and one of the

14:28 questions was about the trust factor. And obviously there's a lot of scams in every industry out there, and so you guys want to be careful. There are red flags. You never want to just give out your Medicare number to anyone. You want to be with a trusted advisor because if they have that information, they can basically change your plan. And so we have a lot of complaints that happened because people change their plans without their authority, our discretion, and so that's unfortunate. We don't want that to happen. They claim that they're a Medicare broker and they really aren't, or they're just trying to make a quick buck and move on to the next client. We're all about not transactional, but building relationships with our clients and making sure that you know we are with you all the way through. Even when you're switching plans. When you're having problems with your plans, we don't go M I A. We are always available for you, guys. So it's important again to not give your information to people you don't know. Okay, that is really important. You want to make sure that you find if the person is really licensed. You want to do some research on that person's company, make sure that they're legitimate. All right, So thank you for listening in on that commercial. We're going to continue talking about Medicare Parts C until we move on to our next guests. Again, like I said, we talked about Medicare Parts A, B, C, and D. Talked about the enrollment periods. We talked about how to roll

15:58 into care. We've had some great guests over the past few weeks as we continue to do this show. So let's continue on on Medicare PARTSY. Like I said, this is like an all in one Medicare plan versus all our cards system with Medicare supplement. So there's like in network coverages versus out in network coverages. There's ppo plans, and there's HMO plans, believe it or not. Unfortunately, here in California, PPO plans are kind of going out the door. They're becoming obsolete, you know, they're not becoming as beneficial to insurance carriers. So unfortunately, the majority of plans out here, at least in southern California, are on the HMO side.

16:43 So what makes HMO different from a PPO. Well, in HMO you have to get an authorization usually to see a specialist from your primary care doctor. You have to be in network. You can only go to an emergency room facility or a urgent care if it is truly an emergency. Otherwise you have to stay in network. Otherwise those costs will go through the roof. So you've got to make sure that you are in network. Now, HMO plans you have a choose an in network PCP. Doctor coverage is limited, unfortunately, but there are lower premiums and out of pocket costs, and a lot of the Medicare advantage plans, especially out here in California, are very competitive and so you're not paying any premium on those Medicare advantage plans. The only thing you're paying is what everyone pays for Part B. Usually it's that baseline of two hundred and two dollars per month and then that's it.

17:41 You're not paying anything more. With a supplement side, you are paying extra. We'll talk about that next week. But with the advantage plan, most of the time you are not playing paying anything extra for those extra benefits. Now, of course, with a PPO plan, you can choose any in network provider without a referral. You have coverage for out of network. It's a little bit higher costs, but you can see doctors out of network, and then there's higher premiums but with greater flexibility. So people like to tend to be on the PPO side, especially if they would budget for it. So that's the difference between the HMO and PPO. Again, HMO you must stay in network, need referrals for specialists, and it's lower costs but more restrictions.

18:28 PPO you can go in or out of network, no referrals needed, and more flexibility, but a higher costs. And then there's what's called special needs plans. Those are specifically Medicare advantage plans for those that have chronic needs, whether it's like diabetes or heart conditions or lung conditions. The plans are are basically honed in on those illnesses, so that prescription drugs are a little bit cheaper on those plans usually, and there's better coordination of care on those plans if you're dealing with one of those illnesses. And then there's what's called dual eligible that means you're both on full Medicare and full Medicaid. Here in California, it's called medical. And then there's institutional care as well. There's those different plans that's based on if you're in a skilled nursing facility or an institution of some sort. So those are the different kinds of Medicare advantage plans that are out there. Most of you, like I said, especially out here in Southern California, which is our audience, are going to be on a HMO plan. Now, what are the key benefits of a Medicare advantage plan. Well, many plans are zero premium, and like I said, you still pay that part B premium which is two two a month, and then maximum out of pocket protection that's what's called MOUP.

19:52 It's a little bit different than what a deductible is. So most of you, when you're under sixty five are on a health plan that had deductible, you had to meet that deductible before a lot of your insurance would kick in with the benefits. Well, with maximum out of pocket, that's a little bit different. Your co payments are still going to be zero across the board, your hospitalization is still going to be zero across the board, and your when you there are certain copayments like if you have cancer, your chemotherapy a lot of times on these plans are about twenty percent. Those are the things that are going to apply to that medical maximum out of pocket costs.

20:38 So for example, some plans have like a two hundred and ninety nine dollars maximum out of pocket. So if you take an ambulance that's like one twenty five co payment, an emergency room visit which is one twenty five, that two fifty total would go towards that two ninety nine. So all you'd have left for the rest of the year is forty nine dollars. So that's crazy. I mean that means for all your costs out there, the max you'd ever pay out of pocket, it's two hundred and ninety nine dollars. If God forbid, something happens to you. Now, for a lot of plants outside of California, the maximum out of pocket is a lot higher. It tends to be about thirty five hundred all the way up to eight thousand dollars sometimes, and so a lot of times you want to basically group your Medicare advantage plan with what's called a critical illness plan, so that kicks in so that you're not having to pay as much for your out of pocket. There's critical illness for cancer, for heart conditions, and those are low premium, so you end up paying very littlely per month and it covers that eight thousand dollars out of pocket maximum. But again that's for a lot of folks that are outside of California.

21:49 The ones that are here in southern California, the maximum out of pocket is very very low in comparison, So you know, most folks that we deal with don't combine those plans with an ancillary plan. That's what we call it a critical plan because the maximum out of pocket is so low. And then there's extra benefits that we talked about. So a lot of these Medicare advantage plans will include dental vision, hearing, over the counter allowance where you can go into like a CBS or Walgreens and buy anything with a debit card that you can use for anything in the pharmacy section, so band aids, supplements. They'll even give you a catalog of what you can order. You can order online and get it delivered to your door.

22:35 GM memberships, so silver seekers. A lot of companies are using what's called one Pass that can be used for a lot of different gym facilities like here out here in southern California be twenty four hour Fitness, LA Fitness, Orange Theory Fitness is actually on that plan for the one pass if you're affiliated with that. And then it does include programs if you have surgery and you get released back at home, they do have meal programs that are usually free. And then transportation, which is is huge for our seniors. A lot of times it's hard to get to a doctor's appointment or go to a pharmacy to get your prescription drugs. So transportation is facilitated through the Medicare advantage plan. And then again most plans will partner part D and bundle that and part y covers your prescription drugs. There are Medicare advantage plans without party those are just called Medicare advantage and so instead of Medicare Advantage MapD plans that include Part D Medicare advantage without part DY. A lot of the times that's used for our veterans, whether they're on Trycare for Life or VA, because they get their prescriptions done through the VA, they don't necessarily need that Part D and so they'll just get on a simple Medicare advantage plan without the party again.

24:01 And then HMO networks, they've got coordinated care especially strong with them talks communicate with each other within the network, so that is really important, all right. So we're gonna stop there and then continue on to part see at our next episode, I'm gonna see if our next two guests are coming on board. Christian and Glenn. They are the reason I'm here today. They are a great support to our business. They've helped us grow, They've given us tremendous support. They are one of our main sponsors everything Senior Insurance and lead heroes. I'm gonna let them tell you a little bit about their companies. And no, they're not here yet, so we'll continue to wait on board for them.

24:50 But just to tell you a little bit about themselves. They are very knowledgeable about the trends here in the medicare universe, medicare industry. Uh, they know the controversy is going on. They know the ins and outs of what you guys need to know as clients as well as agents. They help us, you know, support our agents as well and give us the tools that we need to continue on servicing our clients. So I see that Glenn is on, So I'm gonna have Glenn hop on. We'll wait for Christian a little bit. Hello, Glenn, how are you man good? How are you, Peter.

25:34 I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I'm so glad to have you on, buddy. It's been a long time. Kevin ho it has yeah, man, how about the start of the year for these Dodgers. They look pretty good bye, they look awesome. They look awesome. I'm excited about about that. Are you You're not a Mariners fan, are you? Because you're from that area, you know. So I'll keep this as brief as possible not to completely derail the show. Here was it was never made, was never like very in, very into baseball. My son got really into baseball maybe four or five years ago. So I started to really follow baseball because of his passion for it.

26:18 At the time. Being in the Northwest, you know. The Manners was kind of our team, so I started to follow the Mariners. He really fell in love with the Dodgers, though, so that's his favorite team. We we went down there a few years ago. The stadium is incredible too. I've been to I've been to a handful stadiums now and I love the Dodgers stadium. Loved the team, and that's my son's favorite team. So but I am by by nature though, based on where I'm at when I started following baseball, I am a Mariners fan. It's it's a tough, tough fan base to be a part of because there's been such They had a great year last year. Obviously we were hoping for more where I was hope and to face you guys, you know in the World Series there, but I was.

27:04 I thought it was one game, Yeah, I know, uh it was. That was brutal. I was just laying on the floor, man, just laying on the floor Game Game seven, just sprawled out, dead to the world for an hour. Now you following March badness at all? Are you? NFL? Absolutely? Yeah? Yeah, we have a company bracket we got. I'm probably in like four different brackets and having a great time with that. I love basketball. Coached my daughter's team this year. We did. We had a pretty good season and it's been so much fun. Following the College Chans, we actually went the here in Portland.

27:45 They had one of the first and second round turns, so we actually went to the first six games in our region. Got to see those. Super fun, such a great time. That awesome. All right, so we're still waiting for CB, right, is he on? I don't know. Yeah, I don't think he's here yet, but you should be here any moment. Okay, Okay, Well why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Glenn? For so our audience is made up both of clients and agents. Yeah, obviously you're dealing with both sets, so you know, I know you and Christian are both partners. I was telling the audience that I'm here because of you guys. You guys have been a tremendous support for me and my agency. Hands down, the knowledge that you give us, the tools that you give us are amazing, and I'm so thankful to both of you guys. So why don't you share a little bit about you and then we'll wait for CEB to come on.

28:42 Absolutely, and you know, Peter, we appreciate you and work with you, appreciate. You having us on today. To give anyone listening or watching this a little backstory about myself. I got started an insurance almost fifteen years ago now, which is really hard to believe. I feel ancient when I say that, but I came from the sales world and I was really looking for a better opportunity for myself and for my family, and that led me to a life insurance brokerage that was near me, and that was my first entry point into the insurance world. At the time, our focus and offerings.

29:24 Was mortgage protection life insurance, so that's life insurance kind of designed to pay off the house in the event that something were to happen, you know, to a husband or. A wife or a spouse. And then we also did some final expense life insurance as well, so you know, final expense life insurance if you don't know what that is. That's designed to help pay for a funeral costs if you don't have anything set up or in place, which unfortunately a lot of seniors are in this position. They don't have any life insurance, they don't have maybe a savings that could pay for a funeral, they don't have a funeral prepaid. And so, you know, the alternative if they don't purchase a final expense life insurance policy is passing the hat around after their death. And I've talked to many families on kind of both sides of this scenario. Families where they've been able to have that cushion of a life insurance policy, and I've talked to families where they did have to pass the hat around. And what I can tell you is the last thing you want to be doing is stressing your family about their own financials as you are, as they're having to grieve, you know, the.

30:40 Passing of you. So that was really my entry point into the senior insurance space. You know, I got very accustomed to final Expense. I sold a lot of it over the course of two or three years. Ultimately that led me into starting a lead generation company called lead Heroes, and our focus was really connecting seniors who need help finding these insurance plans, whether it's a Medicare plan or a life insurance plan like final Expense and how in connecting them with an agent that can help them, whether that's a local agent or an agent that's licensed in their statement and they could be selling over the phone. Again, as an agent who sold myself for many years, I realized very quickly that this was a very important part of the agent process, right, is how can an agent stay in contact with as many prospects as possible?

31:35 Right? I mean you probably just I'm sure you've heard the saying, you know, leads are the lifeblood of an agent, right, I mean you don't have people to talk to, how can you write policies? Right? For sure? For sure? Yeah, we've our agency has used you guys in lead heroes especially, you know, they've got this new systemic agents are less in where they have preset apployments. That's been huge for us. And having people actually show up or answer their phones. I've not heard of that before in any other lead company. So that's that's been a good tool for us to use.

32:17 Yeah, it's been an incredible tool for you know, both agents at ESI and agents outside of ESI that that we work with. Obviously, there's lots of benefits of working with everything Senior Insurance, you know, we're able to pass along resources and discounts that we're not able to offer to other agents or agencies, but that ultimately, you know, the journey from there of you know, becoming an agent selling insurance for years and then starting to get focused on the marketing side and growing a marketing company. Which ultimately led to Christian I E. Merging our businesses together in twenty twenty four, which has really just been an accelerator for.

32:59 Both of us. You know, combining essentially the marketing side with the agency side and being able to grow these businesses together has has really been fantastic. So for those of you. Who don't know who I am, or maybe you're new to the industry, just a quick little background on you know, how I got here. Awesome, awesome, and then what you know you mentioned everything senior insurance. For those who don't know, what's the place. Of an FMO in the medicure space. And this is a fantastic question because a lot of people, I think don't know what that means, right FMO or it's also kind of interchangeable with IMO.

33:40 There's a lot of these three letter. You know, acronyms, these these abbreviations that you'll hear thrown around, and part of the problem is it will be. Interchangeable. People will use some of these terms without necessarily no knowing exactly what that means. I mean, there's GA, MGA SGA, IMO, FMO NMO right. I mean for years, I would hear these terms, and I would think I would kind of know what it meant, and I'm you know, I'm just kind of trying to guess based on the context, right a situation. So but again for those if you're new or if you're not sure what some of these acronyms are, it's essentially a hierarchy where you have somebody who's working with you to help grow your agency or grow your book of business, and they a lot of times are the intermediary between you and the insurance carrier. You know, the insurance carrier can only have so many direct relationships.

34:47 Some of these carriers are bigger than others, some of them will have more direct relationships than other carriers do. But at the end of the day, they have limited resources and limited direct partnerships available. So how can they get you. Know, all of their training and all of their insurance contracts out to the masses without having all of these direct relationships. It comes through this this hierarchy of opportunity, through the iMOS, through these fmos. So and again explain what some of these stand for. And the main ones you'll really hear are FMO and IMO. So FMO is field marketing organization, IMO is independent marketing organization. In my opinion, IMO and FMO are kind of interchangeable. I think you could kind of use those in either way. But the idea is that an FMO will give you access to all carriers, even if you're a brand new agent and you're not able to qualify for a direct relationship to that carrier. And the hope is that that relationship will also offer you know, resources such as you know, training marketing.

35:56 It could be. Referral partners and you know, helping you recruit your agency. It could be access to software tools, quoting tools, CRMs. The list kind of goes on and on. Now, obviously, every FMO and every IMO is different. And Christian did a really great but I don't know if you saw a video he recently published on his YouTube channel about legacy fmos. Did you have did you have a chance? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was great. That was great. Yeah, how how do people find his YouTube channel? Yeah, if you just search Christian Brindle on YouTube, it'll pop right up.

36:38 Awesome. He's got some great information on there. He does. And I'll tell you, guys firsthand from working with him as long as I have, he puts a lot of time and energy into providing this type of information through his YouTube channel. So, but to kind of circle back to this legacy FMO conversation, the older way of and Joseph, you've been in the business for a while, so you've probably had maybe a few different IMO FMO relationships. I myself personally have had many IMOFMO relationships over the years, so I'm sure you probably understand where this whole thing's coming from. But the old school way, or the legacy FMO model, a lot of times all they would do is say, hey, Joseph. You know, hey, mister Joseph, here's your access to this carrier. And that's it, right. All they're doing is saying, we're going to get you connected where you can offer Etna, Mutual of Oohmaha, United Healthcare, Humana, and there you go.

37:46 And that was it, right. There wasn't really any additional benefits, right, I mean, did you have any relationships like that before. Yeah, well, before I met you guys, actually was with a FMO. She was like a one person show. She kind of held us back quite a bit. I started asking questions about different levels in the organization of how I can move up, and she started telling me that there were no such things as m gas with different carriers, only with SCAN and United Healthcare. And I was like, that doesn't seem right, and it didn't sit well with me, and so I learned the hard way that this was not the place for me. You know. She was basically the top level, and that's why she couldn't create any MGA levels underneath her. She was basically her.

38:42 That was the top level for her. So it was brutal and and she took it personally when I left and went to you guys. You know, unfortunately, it was one of those things where you got to look at it as a business and what's best for me and our company. It's not a personal attack. It's just the way it is, right. Absolutely, and that is you know, that's part of the business, right Sometimes it is agents look for a new home, so but that is again that's kind of part of the legacy model is kind of safeguarding that type of information. I think here in twenty twenty six, the new playbook and the exciting playbook is being able to be as transparent as possible, being able to show you know, all this information and at ESI everything senior turns. I know, Christ and I are are big proponents of this is you know, hey, this is how this works. You know, this is how these pieces come together. And you know, ultimately, if someone were to outgrow you know, our organization, it's not something where we would stop them.

39:50 You know. Releases, this is another big part of the conversation. Some of the older fmos won't release agents. What that means if you're a brand new agent, you don't know what that means. It means that when you try to switch to a different IMO or different FMO or a different upline if you're if your current upline will not give you a release to do that switch, you have to wait typically ninety days or longer depending on the carrier, to self release. So you basically have to go to the carriers and say, hey, I'm switching who my relationship my upline is. They will not give me a release, so I'm going to do a self release. If your upline had just signed a paper that said, hey, we're going to release you, you could have moved over essentially immediately to wherever you wanted to go. And so again, that's that's kind of part of that legacy FMO conversation. You know, if all theyre if all your organization that you're working with is doing is giving you access to contracts, giving you access to applications that you can write, they're not providing any type of resources or benefits or access to tools or technology or marketing. And on top of it, if they have a history of not releasing agents, I mean, run for the hills, right Yeah, sure, but so many better organizations out there.

41:08 So well, I thank you guys my great job of training our agents as well. I mean, obviously, you know I do a lot of training for my agents. We do weekly zoom trainings and check in and like that. But you know, for my agents to be able to go to a seven figure university and look at videos and training there, to be able to go to the actual company and talk to someone over there to get them the help and resources they need, that's huge. And to have that kind of support system that takes time off my shoulders. So I definitely appreciate that about you guys too. Yeah, I mean that's the thing, right, I mean, we want to essentially help people like you, Peter who want to build an agency the same way we've built an agency, right, so being able to provide you access to that type of training, being able toy there he is now.

42:07 There, he is the man of the hour. Hey man, I'm. Sorry if I read didn't send the right link to you guys. I don't know, no, no, it was completely my fault. I was in a meeting that we lost track of time, and my apologies for running lately. Yeah, glad to be here with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've been talking about Glen and how he came into this and Christian, I know we only have a few minutes left and you guys, just just for you guys to know listening in. Uh, these guys will be back three more times throughout the year, and I've got some great information that they're going to share. You both are great sponsors in mine, so I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedules. Christian, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself of how you got into this business and what you're about.

42:57 Yeah, yeah, one hundred. Well, for those of you that don't know me, I'm Christian Brindle. I'm the founder and CEO of Everything Senior Insurance. We're a licensed Medicare specialized insurance agency doing business in about forty six states. I got into the business because, like a lot of people in insurance, my dad was an agent for about twenty five years before I ever got in. So I came in and got licensed at twenty one, and originally I worked. With my dad. After a couple of years of that ended up breaking off in a way and starting my own agency. But you know, I've been doing this about eleven years now, and one thing I can say that has never changed when it comes to Medicare is it's confusing, it's overly complicated.

43:49 Both of those things continue to increase for Medicare beneficiaries. And there's more of a need now than I think ever for comp tent, honest, trustworthy agents to guide the consumers through the whole process, because it definitely is a circus and that hasn't gotten less so over the years. So yeah, that's just like a ten thousand foot view about us. You know, we we you know, we have two sides of our business. So we have a side where we work with customers and consumers, and then we have a side of our business where we work with agents. And you know, it's a lot of fun to be able to provide a lot of positive impact on both fronts for everything Senior Insurance. So we love what we're doing and there's a lot of bright futures ahead I think for us awesome.

44:39 And you guys are based out of Utah, right, yes. Sir, yes, sir, So for anybody not familiar with Utah, we're probably fifteen minutes outside of Salt Lake in a suburb called Sandy, but we service the full state of Utah and we also service forty five other states in addition to Utah, so we're very much a national agency, but we also have baked in that little local agency charm as well, so we kind of got the best of both worlds awesome. And if agents are listening in and you guys want a new home, how would they find you guys? Obviously, glend you've got the lead hero system as well if people are looking for leads too, So what are the ways that they can contact you both.

45:24 Yeah, well I can go first. I mean, if anybody wants to inquire about. Working with Everything Senior Insurance on the agent front of things, they can go to our website E Senior Insurance dot com or they can just google Everything Senior Insurance and they can find us pretty easily. They can email into us. We have an info at E Senior Inns dot com email address they can email or they can give us a call. Just mention our office number. I guess it's eight O one two five five five three four zero. Again, that's a one two five five five three four zero. So that's how they can get in touch with the SI on that front. But I'll let Glenn answer on the lead hero side.

46:07 Yeah. So. And also, guys, if you're a life health agent out. There and you're looking for being a part of a community, we have a really large community called some Figure Medicare Agent, so you can find that on Facebook. We also have a website that kind of parallels that called sevenfigure dot com. It's just as simple as it sounds. S E V E n F I g U R E dot com. That's kind of a link tree website where you can hit seven figure dot Com and see everything that Christian and I have going on, whether that's the summit which is coming up here in just a few months. We just had a planning meeting yesterday. We're really excited about to get everyone out to Salt Lake this summer. We have higher Heroes or Virtual Assistant platform Lead Heroes, which I talked a little bit about.

46:56 That's kind of our lead generation, an appointment setting platform, and then everything Senior Insurance. You can find access to the agency through there as well. So that's probably the best way if you're trying to trying to learn more about what we're doing, or how to get ahold of us, or maybe you want to work with one of our businesses, that's probably the best place to go is sevenfigure dot Com. Awesome, Awesome, All right, Well, we got one minute left, so I don't want to This is a big question. So in a nutshell, what's the biggest Medicare change for this year? Just something that our clients should be aware of. You know, I think for me this might feel like a cheat answer, but I think the compounding effect of funding that Medicare advantage plans need right now that they're probably not all getting to the degree that they would want to for their margins to work. For those of you that don't know, like Medicare, advantage plans are heavily dependent on government funding. That's how they can offer zero dollar premium plans and low premiums in most areas in the country. And the last couple of years, there's been some legislation pass like the Inflation Reduction Act that's caused them to have to be responsible for a large amount of additional costs when it comes to prescription drug coverage.

48:16 And then in addition to that, Medicare is proposing an under one percent increase on their funding, which doesn't even match inflation. I don't think that's actually what we'll actually see, but time will tell. So I think because of those things, what you're going to see and what we've seen the past couple of years already, but I think this year will be a continuation of that is a lot of plans will terminate at the end of this year. We've seen that the last couple of years. It's been record margin of plans terminating in various areas all over the country. But if a plan doesn't terminate, I think if you have a plan right now that is heavy on what I would call ancillary benefits, so dental coverage, vision, hearing, gym memberships, all the extras, the goodies, the food cards. Expect that stuff to get slashed. And what's going to be more of a priority is your provider networks, your medical benefits, your max out of pockets, your hospital copays. It's going to get back to more of.

49:12 The essentials on these Medicare advantage points. I don't think you'll see as much of the goodies, and I think that's just what everybody should expect coming into open enrollment. But it doesn't mean you can't still find fantastic plan options going forward awesome, which. I know we're over time here, but i'll just throw in add to that doesn't mean that those goodies right aren't available. This is a great opportunity to offer ancillary plans right when Medicare advantaged plans have started to kind of pivot and go in this direction, which I completely agree with everything Christian just said. I think that's what we're looking at going into play in your twenty twenty seven.

49:53 That means that as agents, we need to be better about offering these ancillary plans to our clients because it gives them the coverage that they need and they don't need to worry about these holes that are starting to appear potentially with their Medicare advantage plans. Awesome, Well, thank you so much both of you guys. I appreciate you so much. You don't even know. And we're going to see these guys back here in a few months, so thank you so much. If you guys want to get a hold of Glenn our Christian, just go to the websites that they mentioned or call them on the phone number that Christian mentioned. This is again live on Facebook as well as YouTube. Thanks so much you guys. I appreciate you.

50:34 Thanks Peter, Thanks Peter, all right, take care. All right, So we did go a little over time, but hopefully that information. Was helpful to all of you guys. We definitely would not be here today without those two individuals, So thank you so much, Glenn and Christian. Hopefully you've got a little bit more information about Glenn our office administrator as well. We love the fact that we can support all these businesses here live on our show and we Medicare. Thanks for listening. Tune into Medicare Hour and more with Peter every Tuesday at nine am Pacific time, right here on K four AD Radio at KFOURHD dot com. For more real life stories from experts medicare about you and protecting your health, your finances, and your future, see you next week