Medicare 101 with Special Guest Andrew Saksa of Essential Engine

0:01 We do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently, we represent twenty one organizations which offer over two of thousand products nationwide. Please contact Medicare dot gov one to eight hundred Medicare for your local state health insurance assistance programs. You get information on all your options, 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 in Medicare because we Medicare. Here's your host, Peter R. Joseph. Hey, Hey, good morning everyone.

0:42 This is my first show, so I'm excited to have you guys here. We are going to be broadcasting live on Facebook and YouTube, so if you have any comments and you're on and you're listening, you know, definitely drop in a comment and we will respond as quickly as possible. We are excited to have you guys here. I've had a lot of reps in different insurance carrier spaces say that they are excited that I'm actually doing this because you know, Medicare is a very confusing journey for a lot of folks, and it's great to have an educational piece out there so people can better understand the process, get the tools they need, and the resources they need to better adapt and get through this process. So we're going to try to make this as un confusing as possible for you guys. And this is more than just Medicare.

1:38 We are actually an insurance brokerage out here in southern California. We are licensed over thirty three states, so we do have clients all over the United States. We do specialize in Medicare and health insurance, but we also do quite a bit in other facets of insurance. So we do property and casualty, we do life insurance, long term care insurance. We also do travel insurance, earthquake insurance, you name it, we do it. The only thing we don't do is personal auto right now, so this is going to be a forum for all things insurance. We want to give you guys all the resources that you need to navigate this world. So today, though we are going to actually be talking about Medicare one oh one, we're going to break down what Medicare covers in terms of parts A, B, C, and D, and every every week that we broadcast, we're going to be doing something A little bit different in terms of the information that we give you guys. This will be helpful. This is all recorded for you guys, so if you guys can't come and watch us live, you can always catch us back on our Facebook business page or the YouTube page. Our YouTube pages Medicare a Minute with Peter. That's the channel for us, and then our Facebook page is just Insurance Broker LLC. So you can catch both of those things on there. All right, So I'm going to dive into Medicare one on one

3:08 and what each part covers. There's so many different letters, I know, it gets really confusing. I just heard a rumor this last year that the government wants to introduce even more letters. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. We've got enough letters to confuse our folks at this point. So these are the really important for you guys to know and have in hand. Obviously, you know CMS is the centers for Medicare and Medicaid. They release a booklet to you guys called Medicare in You every year that's updated with the most latest information. The problem with that booklet is it is pretty long and hefty. Not a lot of folks have the time to read through all that, and so that's why you know, I want to have this show to break down the different parts of metical care for you guys and how to actually enroll into mantercare.

4:03 So Part A is something that most of us will get free if we've worked here ten years in the United States. You have a certain amount of units that you have to qualify for in Social Security. It's forty units and that equates to that ten years here in the United States, full time. Part A is free for everyone who's here a citizen in the US. So Part A covers hospital insurance, It covers inpatient hospital stays, skilled nursing facility care after qualifying hospital stay. It covers hospice care for terminal illness, and limited home health services. So it does cover a little bit of the home health not what you're thinking of in terms of the long term care, but there are coverages for home health care, so keep that in mind. So it does cover like, you know, your semi private hospital room, meals care, medications received during inpatient treatment, rehab services. So that's a big one.

5:06 I do have a current client right now who's going through rehab. They are asking me, you know, does their Medicare plan cover rehab services and it definitely does, and then hospice support services, so that is all covered under there. So that is part A. Part A is free for everyone when they turn sixty five or they roll into Medicare after they come off an employer health plan. Now Part B is for medical insurance, so that covers like your doctor visits, your lab work, your outpatient hospital services, preventative services, mental health services, durable medical equipment, and medically necessary outpatient treatment. So Part B is something that everyone pays.

5:51 It's not free. I do have some clients who always think, you know, once they get out to Medicare, oh, I don't have to pay anything. Well, yeah, we paid into Medicare, but it's not free unfortunately, so most folks have to pay usually a baseline if you're making about I think the last figure was about ninety two thousand dollars. It's that figure changes every year as well, and so if you're making that income and you're single, most folks are paying about two to oh two per month this year for Part B. So that comes out of either your Social Security or you're billed for it three months at a time, and so that covers your Part B if you're making more than that, or you're a married couple making more than that. So if you're married and you're making more than one hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars, you're basically pro rated a certain amount that's a little bit more than that two O two. So there's a chart.

6:45 I don't want to overwhelm you with numbers at this point, so we'll we'll go over that next time that we have our show. So just know that most folks do pay about two hundred and two dollars a month for Medicare. And again, like I said, it covers your primary care visits, specialists, diagnostic imaging, preventive screenings, vaccines, outpatient therapy, and provider administrator medications such as chemotherapy or infusion therapy. All right, so that's what Part B covers. Here's the thing that people are not aware of is that Part B does not cover Medicare as a whole. Even does not cover long term care. And so a lot of folks find out the hard way when they're starting to, you know, unfortunately get those diagnoses of cancer. They're in skilled nursing field facilities.

7:41 Over one hundred and twenty days. Those things need to be covered by long term care policy, which is something that we do offer, but it's something that you want to prepare for when you're a lot younger because the older you get, the more expensive it gets, and so it's important to cover those costs. Medicare is not going to cover every everything. And just so you know, if you're just on original Medicare, there is no cap on the limit of what you're going to spend out of pocket. And so we'll dive into that a little bit more, but that's why, you know, folks need to get a long term care policy to cover for those situations that you can't really prepare for and you don't want to be you know, I have a lot of out of pocket expenses at that point. You know, I do have some clientsho say, well, I'm going to have a family member take care of me. Well, A, you don't want to put that burden on your family member and be you don't know what the situation is going to be in ten fifteen years, and so you don't know where that family member is going to live, You don't know if it's going to be doable for that person, and so you want to be made sure that you're taking care of well and good. So that is Part B.

8:57 Now Part D as Dog covers your prescription drug coverage, so that covers your standalone prescription drug plans. It covers the cost of medications at retail pharmacies and mail order pharmacies. You know, covers your brand name as well as your generic medications. There is a formulary list that each insurance carrier has and so you want to make sure your prescription is on that formulary list so that it's covered. If it's not, then it's not going to be covered. So but it covers your pharmacy networks, It has tiered formularies and also has protection from catastrophic catastrophic drug costs. Sorry about that. So that is what Part D covers.

9:42 Part D is a plan that you have to get on top of original medicare that it has an additional cost. It just depends on the carrier. Sometimes it's a zero dollar premium, sometimes it's a little bit more. So again let's break it down Part as hospital. Part B is your doctor's and lab work. Parts C, which is what we'll talk about next, and then Part D covers your prescription drugs, all right, So just keep that in mind. I know there's a lot of letters to keep straight, but I want to make sure you guys have everything kind of covered in that regard. Now, Part C that includes sometimes dental vision, hearing, fitness programs, prescription drugs, care coordination, annual maximum out of pocket protection. So Part C is like a Medicare advantage plan. And we'll talk about the different journeys that people can take with original Medicare versus Medicare advantage versus a Medicare supplement. But we won't go we won't dive too deep into that in this session right now, but just let you guys know Parts C is a Medicare advantage plan, and that's what you hear about a lot in add in newspaper readings as well as in the media, and that's usually you know, the big annual enrollment time in the fall is all usually centered around Medicare advantage plans. So that's that's it for

11:17 those letters. Now today, for my first show, we actually have a special guest, and so just to let you guys know, we do have we're going to have guests from time to time. We are going to have quite a few sponsors. We already have an FMO a marketing organization called Everything Senior Insurance that is sponsoring us, another company called Lead Heroes. We have a couple of local businesses out here in Chino and Chino Hills, California that will be sponsoring us and coming on as guests. We want to bring these guests on because we want to show you the companies that we work with that we feel are reputable, and whether we're working with them directly or indirectly. We want to make these resources available to all our clients. So all our seniors, all our families, all our small businesses that we work with directly, these are going to be resources that you can reach out to.

12:16 We're going to have their contact information. We will have a website for our podcasts, and all their sponsor information will be on there as well. So I'm excited that we're going to have Andrew Soksa, and so I'm going to kind of talk about what Andrew does. He's the vice president of Strategic Channels at a Central Engine, where he leads strategic partnerships and distribution initiatives designed to help insurance agents and final financial advisors grow their practices. Through relationship driven marketing. With more than a decade of experience in the insurance and financial services ecosystem, Andrew has specialized in building innovative marketing channels and strategic alliances that help professional strength and client relationship chips and generate referrals. In addition to his leadership role at a Central Engine, Andrew serves on the advisory board of Agent Review, where he helps guide initiatives that connect consumers with trusted insurance professionals through technology and marketing and innovation. Andrew is very passionate about helping advisors stand out in competitive markets by combining brand, storytelling, technology partnerships, and client first marketing strategies. So I am so excited to have Andrew as our first guest in our inaugural show. He's going to be coming on here shortly.

13:35 Hey Andrew, how are you? Peter? I fantastic, What a great first show. I love you. We really broke down basically what all these letters that we stand for. I go to so many conferences I hear this stuff thrown around. It was such a nice way to start to show your first show by breaking it all down and then just also to share something about that long term care. So my uncle who lives in Ventura, not too far from you, actually a great guy, you know, grew up in southern California, surfer, hiker, all this really great stuff. His wife has now gotten to the stage of her dementia that they are out visiting a lot of these facilities and oh my gosh, the cost is just astronomical. So, boy, I'll tell you what if you don't plan ahead of time for these types of things, that really set aside assets and work with someone like yourself, Peter, who really is an expert in these fields. Boy, you really need to start. So that's again a message. I know this is a pretty broad audience, right, It's gonna be some clients. It's also gonna be some fellow agents. I love your sponsors, by the way, Christian Brandle, one of the greatest guys in the business. Clinn Shelton, one of the best people in the business. If you're an agent, you're not going to the seven figure Medicare agent somemmit this year? You uh, that's in June. You definitely want to be attending that event. So with all

15:07 that beings at, Peter, thank you so much for the introduction Yep. I'm Andrew Sachs. You guys probably known me for a decade running around out there a lot of these conferences. Peter and I've been friends for a while, and I got to tell you, when you're looking for a great agent, look for somebody like Peter. Peter does everything you possibly can every single day, not only to put your needs as a client first, but also to be out there in the community sharing all kinds of ways that other agents can also do. Something that is so important, which is working in the senior market. So I'm going to shift gears away from the clients of the story. If it's okay with you, Peter, please please share a little bit about how I can help some of your colleagues, some of the other agents out there in the world. They're looking to grow their business connected a relationship level with the client, to not only increase their retention, but also to grow their business.

16:06 And let me let me stop you there for a second. Just just tell you that our audience, the only reason I brought Andrew on too, is that we are actually working with Andrew for our clients as well. So for my clients that are listening, you guys are going to be seeing a magazine come into your doorstep pretty soon. So I'm gonna let Andrew kind of take care of that and take it from here. That I wouldn't be bringing on people that I don't trust, and I trust Andrew inherently. So thank you so much for coming on our show. Thank you, Peter. I appreciate that. Right back at you, my friend, thank you. Thank you. All Right, Andrew, so just tell us a little bit about yourself. Obviously I gave you that intro, but what what do you do essentially with Essential Engines?

16:52 How do you help agents, you know, build that reputation of retaining clients and growing their business? Awesome? Well, Peter, you and I both know this is one of the most exciting times ever to be an agent in our industry. Right, this is the silver tsunami. Right, Holy cow, sixty million Americans controlling one hundred and twenty trillion dollars of wealth. Oh my gosh, twelve thousand people every single day in the United States turn sixty five that need help from Peter, from all you incredible agents out there that just do amazing work. And our goal at a Central Engine is to help you connect with your client at a relationship level, turning your client into a raving fan for your business. Like I said, not just for the retention aspect of it all, but also to really and truly help the agent grow their business. Because, let's face it, if you've got a great agent like Peter out there, why wouldn't you want to share his information to all of your friends, all your family, your pickleball buddies, your golf buddies, your surfing buddies. If you're out there in southern California shredding waves, boy, I'll tell you what if you can connect at a relationship level with a beautiful marketing piece focus on retirement with actual stories that are really geared towards not only what to expect and anticipate when you're going through retirement, but the lead up to retirement. And the nice thing about our magazine is again, not only are you on the cover,

18:26 but like Peter said, it's even got to customize message right down on the inside cover of the magazine that can be right down to your individual client level. So, Peter, you and I both know lots of folks out there that just had their first grand baby. Right my wife and I got a first fan kid not too long ago. Imagine if Peter, me and my wife Tamila were your client and you sent that gorgeous magazine to us and you said, Hey, Andrew, hey Tamila, congratulations on your baby, your little grand baby, right all right, gosh, we would be the biggest raving fan for your business ever. And by having the ability to customize the back cover of the magazine inside out as well, Peter, I know you do amazing things in your community. Let's showcase that.

19:13 Right. Let's take that church, that charity, that foundation that you're doing all this great work with the Senior Center, and let's put them on the back cover of the magazine. Let's give them a little love. Let's give that opportunity for that client, that prospect that's here to once again understand why you're such a great agent, not just because you're a subject matter expert, which you absolutely one hundred percent are, but also in addition to that, let's show all the amazing things you do in the community to make the community better for seniors. So that's our focus. We give you a beautiful tool, not just magazines at Land I have the Retiring Well magazine, we have an essential living magazine, which is here towards the younger crowd a little bit right, So you got a little bit more travel, a little bit more recipes, more general interest stuff there again, nothing controversial, holy smokes man, you're talking about the third rail these days. But again just really great things again that are general interests that everybody looks forward to. And the best part about it is we make it turnkey. Peter, you know firsthand you have your own coach. They help you every step of the way.

20:30 They help you with your list. Anybody that you're going to send a magazine to, if you're lucky enough to be one of Peter's clients and you're getting the magazine, rest assured there's no other agent out there in the world that would ever be able to send you a magazine. Peter worked awful heart to bring you on board and does a great job of taking good care of you, and we respect that and we want to make sure that that relationship seys intact. So once again, exclusive your own coach or hand in hand with you, customize that message. If you have a great co brand partner. Maybe there's a doctor's office, or maybe there's an attorney or a state planning or a Senior Center, like we just talked about, you can put them on the back cover of the magazine.

21:13 Then we can put one of Peter's QR codes right here on the front cover of the magazine. So again, everybody that's going through that office, they can stand Peter's QR code, have an appointment, get that scope of appointment all taken care of, which is necessary for Peter to be able to do the right business, to be able to help protect you and your family. That's great, and I think it's important, especially in this day and age, because you know, especially with our field agents, we are not you know, transactional. We're all about relationship building and so we're not one and done that we don't just kind of, you know, sign you up for a policy and then kind of leave you. We want to make sure that we continue that relationship and always possible.

21:58 And so this is a great way, Andrew, for US agents to continue to check in with our clients make sure that they get resources that they can use for their everyday lives. So I love this magazine idea. I do have a question for you though, because you know, AI is huge right now, right, I mean, that's the next big thing. So you know with AI, you know, why is relationship marketing so important for an agent at this point? What a great question. So I agree with you, right, So many agents right now are trying to lean on AI as a way to bring or meet new clients. And let's face it, there's some really cool stuff. Peter.

22:39 You and I just did a LinkedIn post and we also did a post on Facebook. Do you think any of that was real? Guys? There was all AI generated, right. I just know how to work with AI to be able to take our real photo and then make it something a little bit more fun. So every day you're seeing this stuff come in and creep into this space. But guys, at the end of the day, if you're a client of Peters, why do you work with Peter? You work with Peter and only because he's that subject matter expert. But he's a real human being. Look at him. He's talking to you right right now. We're real people out here in the world. And the strength of that relationship and to be able to separate yourself from all the competition that is out there just again fully into the AI world and or you know, just constantly trying to acquire leads from other leads or not leave heroes love lead heroes.

23:38 But what I'm saying is, honestly, you have to do something that shows you're a real human being. I always say that people listen, if you get a little puppy dog, why wouldn't you take a photo of you with your little puppy dog. Put it right there on the inside cover of the magazine Because guess what, Peter, you and I put a whole bunch of your clients have little puppy dogs out there, right and they work with people that also so have puppy dogs. Are good animals known that? So how do you separate yourself from all the competition? Again, a magazine is a great way to once again showcase that you're a human being. You're out there in the world helping people. If you're in a community and you want to go sit down with Peter and meet them in person, Peter would love to sit down and meet you in person. We're not AI, We're real human being.

24:25 So again, what a great question, Peter. Again, I think you really, truly do need to strengthen a relationship, connect to both halves of that household, connect to that next generation, and do it in a way where you're real, you're authentic, and you show people how much you care about them. And Peter, that's one of the things I love about you, man, is you always put the client's needs ahead of your own. There was never a moment in your career where you were out there hustling for yourself and your family first ahead of your client. It was always that servant attitude that, hey, look, the more help I can give to seniors to navigate these waters, to be able to do all the right things to protect them and their loved ones, my reward in my riches will come as a result of putting them first. So I was respected about you, Peter.

25:20 Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate those comments. I really do. So I'm gonna put you on the spot here, Andrew. There's going to be a question that I want to ask because you know, obviously we've got a lot of our clients listening in, so you know, is there something you've been in this medicare space for years? I'm sure so. Is there something that our clients should be aware of in this medicare space? Anything, any changes that you feel like they should be aware of, anything to help them prepare for as they turn sixty five to get onto Medicare. Are there any like key factors that you feel like they should know. Yeah, I think the biggest one is when you have somebody like Peter in your life, they can really truly help you with your business. You got to stay with that guy. You got to do everything you can to support that guy. Right, because the fact that Peter's right, there's so many changes coming down the pike, and every year, we never know what Washington's going to do. We really never know what the carriers are going to do. We honestly don't know a lot of things out there. We do everything we possibly can, right. Peter is a true subject matter expert. He really does listen to all these changes and intends these important events. Again, Christian Brendelson figure medicare something a little bit of expert love here today, buddy.

26:40 But the reason why I mentioned that is Peter reaches into his own pocket, spends his own dollar to go to find out what these changes are from the top people in the entire world, they're in the medicare space. That's why you need to work with Peter. That's why you need to work with agents again, as opposed to just call one eight hundred number and just you know, working with somebody that could even be in the Philippines for all that matters. So all I'm telling you is this, We're all going to see changes. Peter's going to always be at the forefront of knowing what those changes are. So a lot, and we're always going to be here for you. And by the way, if you're a client of Peters and you're a small business owner and you still have your business going and you're looking for a way to create value for your business by seeing connected with your clients, your prospects in spheres, guys, we can help you do that. Reach out to me. I'm an essential engine. Www, not essential engine. I'll even put my little number in the tat Awesome.

27:42 Awesome, Yeah, I mean we're going to be doing a magazine and we actually are looking to build our relationship with We have a dental office that we work with closely. We help their patients, and so we want to give them a little bit love and so I'm looking forward to possibly putting their information in the magazine alongside and giving them a little bit more support in that regard. So I love that idea. I think, you know, like Andrew said, if you're a small business, especially here on Chino Chino Hills, and you want some more love, you want some more publicity, this is the way to go. Trust me. It is so Andrew. What what's a good way of getting a hold of you outside of your website?

28:22 Do you have a phone number? Sure? Do? Wait? I love your scrolling. Thank you, thank you. It's got my mobile number, it's got my direct line. Awesome, awesome. Also reach out to Peter, guys. Peter has all my numbers, my cell number, my office, my email, which just flashed across a sas and Essential Living or Essential Engine Central Living is our magazine, Essential Engine dot com. Yes, please reach out to me, Peter. Thank you for the additional plug. I would have missed that completely. Yeah, of course, all the way. If you're an agent, listen, guys. If you're an agent, guys, I'm going to do something very special because you tuned into this broadcast as a thank you to Peter, guys, I've got a very special promotion. Again, because we have a lot of clients that are going to be part of this. I don't necessarily want everybody to know all the special promotions I'm doing, but do me a favor.

29:22 Reach out to me directly, say you heard about us on Peter's Medicare Hour and more with Peter, and because of that, I'm going to do something I don't do for almost anybody in the world. So guys, reach out to me. Make sure you let me know that you heard about me from this incredible podcast that Peter is doing, and let me help you guys for your business. Again. I've been doing this for ten years. I'm passionate about this industry. I care about seniors. I love it when I get somebody like Peter that is such an authentic expert in the industry, works so hard to help you guys every single day. And because of Peter, I want to do everything I can for you today as well.

30:11 And Peter, by the way, it's also a great recruiting tool too for. Your Yeah, no, awesome. I appreciate that. Andrew and you guys you need to take advantage. Honestly, this is a once in a lifetime deal. We took up on his offer, and so I encourage you guys. If you are listening in and you're an agent, you know, definitely reach out to Andrew right away. Andrew, you know this is for medicare agents, but also do you guys do this magazine for like real estate agents or financial advisors? Sure? What a great question. Again, thank you again so much. Yes we are. The company is about twenty five years old. J Just so you know, we work with over twenty thousand financial advisors. We also work with a ton of real estate professionals. Look, at the end of the day, whether you're a financial advisor, whether you're a real estate professional, whether you're an outstanding insurance agent like Peter, we all recognize one thing. We are in a relationship business, and you have to do something in a consistent manner to connect to both abs of that household and connect to that next generation. And if you can do it where it's turn key but has a big impact for your business, well I'll tell you what we are a great solution.

31:26 So yes, the answer is I work with real estate, I work with financial advisors. I work with anybody whose business is predicated on repeat and reform. Awesome, awesome, Well, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on our show. I appreciate your time. And you guys have his information. It's scrolling on the bottom again. This is on our Facebook page, YouTube page. You can find the information there. We will also put that podcast website out so that you can find his information there as well. Andrew, thank you, my friend. You have a wonderful week, and again for joining us on our first inaugural show. That's awesome. I appreciate it. Man.

32:06 Congratulations my friend in a great show. I can't wait to see more episodes and I'll be on anytime you ever want me to be on. Peter Awesome. I appreciate it, brother, appreciate it. Take care, Thanks everybody. All right, man, what an amazing first guest that we had. I loved the information Andrew shared with us. Again, you know, his information is going to be in a lot of different places, so you can definitely reach out to him. I encourage all agents listening in or hearing the recorded version of this to definitely reach out to Andrew for that offer. You know, we want to definitely be in the ears of our clients constantly. I'm just gonna kind of dive into a little bit background of myself and how I came into this business. As some of you are listening in for the first time and don't know a lot about me, So let me just kind of start with. You know shared in the beginning that we are a brokerage out here in southern California. We specialize in medicare and health insurance, but we do all other insurance products as well. We've got twenty six agents in our agency all over the United States as well as a office administrator. Her name is Glenn, so she's been an amazing asset to our agency and we've been doing this while I've been doing this for almost ten years now.

33:38 My agency, though, has only been around for about six years so, but I have been in the insurance space for about ten years. Well, for those of you who don't know, yes, I am young. It's at the Egyptian blood. It looks like I'm pretty young, right, I'm actually fifty one years old, believe it or not. And so what did I do before the insurance space. Well, I was in a nonprofit sector for about twenty two years and I worked for different mission organizations, leading teens either overseas on mission projects to Native American reservations. I also worked for churches. I was a youth pastor, I was an associate pastor, I was a children's pastor. So I have all that experience well, what made me leave the church space and the nonprofit space. Honestly, I wanted to have a little bit more stability. If you don't know, you move around quite a bit when you're in nonprofit sector, and I wanted some more stability for my family currently right now, my wife is a social worker, My son is eleven years old, and my daughter is fifteen years old in high school. And so I just wanted to stop moving around so much. My wife is a social worker for the State of California. She's been with that place for thirteen years, and so her her job was very stable, but mine was not. And so the second reason we left is because of the politics. Unfortunately. You know,

35:10 politics seep into every type of uh line of of professionalism unfortunately, even in the nonprofit sector, and so uh there was a lot of hypocrisy how to deal with There was just a lot of things that weren't done right, and so you know, I was kind of burnt out by that and tired of it, and and so I wanted to find a space though, where I was continuing to help people, administer to people and and really use my servants heart. And so I knew insurance was a place that I could help people. And the first place I went to was actually New York Life, and there's a person there who put a little wigam I hear about people needing help with Medicare and Medicare being so confusing and our seniors need some help. And so I started diving into that a little bit more and realized, you know, this is a niche for me. This really talks about my skill set in a great way because I'm able to continue to help people and educate people the same way I've been doing for those twenty two years in nonprofit sector, and I wanted to bring value to that industry. And so I decided to create my own brokerage six years ago and give just a place in the service for where I could help seniors' best

36:47 and our business took off. You know, I'm all about relationship building. I'm not like those call centers where I'm one and done and transactional. What we talked about earlier in our interview process with Andrew, we strive to know our clients' lives and and know you know, what they struggle with, their pain points, how we can help them and so uh that is one of the main reasons our business did take off. We're always accessible and available. If you don't get a hold of me, you can get a hold of one of my agents or my office administrator. But we're always available. We call back as quickly as we can. We become your advocate for the insurance carriers. If you come into a tough spot where you need some help, you get bills that you don't understand, those kind of things, were there as your advocate and to help you through that whole process. So so that's a little bit about myself and how I came into this business. I'm excited about the show and what it's going to be able to provide for for all our clients.

38:00 You know, obviously there's gonna be different audiences that this connects with. We will connect with our clients, We'll connect with prospects, We'll connect with families with seniors. We'll be connecting with agents across the board who want some more resources and help. Already just got a comment here, Like I said, we are live, so you know, I want to be able to respond back to these questions. So I already have someone who wants to give our number for insurance for some help. So I appreciate that just by listening in they have a friend that they want to refer us out to. So thank you so much for that. We will definitely reach out to them. So the uh, the other thing I want to share too is just kind of our family life. We are very supportive of our local community. You know, our kids go to local schools here on Chino Chino Hills, and I've been a part of the Chamber of Commerce for several years.

39:13 I was an ambassador with them. I'm actually looking to meet with the president of the Chamber and get more involved again with the Chamber of Commerce in the in the coming year. So looking forward to that. We always get back financially as well to our local schools and small businesses, and so this is another forum for us to be able to support small businesses in our area, to have them come on as sponsors, to be able to share their story, share their information, refutable companies that we work with directly or indirectly that we want them to be resources for you guys. And so one of the sponsors that I forgot to mention is Roses say they are an amazing company here in Chino, and uh, they are one of the most unique floorists out there.

40:08 You'll have to when they come on, I'll show you kind of what they do with their flowers. But they actually put images on their flowers. They can put words on the flowers. I've never seen any other forest company doing that. And so UH they've been around for for several years. And so Rose Study is one of my good friends, and she's helping sponsor our show as well. So I'm thankful for her and her information will be coming on UH in the next few weeks. So that's a little bit about kind of myself. I do want to also share that, you know, I coach from time to time my son's basketball team. We just had our season these last few months. We you know, I've I've been involved with volunteering with my daughter a different programs and different charities. Obviously she has to get service hours, but she definitely has a servant's heart as well. Bless her heart and loves to help people. And she's also helped us with our agency in sending out postcards and whatnot.

41:16 So she's been an awesome assistant. So and then, like I said, my wife is a social worker for the State of California. She's been doing that for thirteen years, and she feels that she has a calling for that, loves her job, loves everything that she does, and has you know, a real heart for helping folks as well. So that's kind of our whole synopsis of our family. So I hope that gives you a little bit of an insight into what we do and what we're about. Again, you can find our information on our website Josephinsurance Broker dot com. We do have a live chat on our website, so if you know you have a question, you can just pop it into the chat and we'll respond back pretty quickly. Are My email is Peter at josephit churancebroker dot com. You can always call. You can even call during the show. We will pick up and if you have any questions for us, we will answer those. Again.

42:24 You can go on our Facebook live as well as our YouTube live channels and drop a comment in there and we'll respond back as well. And then our our direct line is nine O nine two one seven two six three zero. So I'm gonna just dive into back into what we were talking about with the parts A, B, C, and D. There is another letter, a couple of letters that I don't want to confuse you guys, but there is letters with the supplement side of things too, So there's letters like g asn't good and as in Nancy.

43:04 We'll dive into Medicare supplements next week and talk about the differences between that and the Medicare Advantage space. But just hopefully you'll you'll understand a little bit better as the weeks go on about what Medicare is and how to enroll. I'm going to touch a little bit since we have a few more minutes about how to enroll into Medicare. You know, with Medicare, there is an enrollment period and so you know a lot of people ask me, well, you know, when I collect Social Security, do not automatically get enrolled into Medicare. You do, But if you're not collecting social Security, you're not retiring, you're still working at your employer, and you're getting health insurance through them, then Medicare isn't automatic and you actually have to sign up for it, and it gets a little bit more complicated.

44:00 So let me kind of just briefly talk about a couple of windows that happen. You know, after your employment ends, you have an eight month window to enroll into Medicare Parts A and B. Now here's what's really confusing, and we've gotten our you know, some of our clients have gotten into hot water with this unfortunately because they don't understand that Part D is in dog for prescriptions only has a sixty three day window. So what happens if you pass those windows you get penalized for life, unbelievably. So it's it's kind of weird how the government has set that up, but that's the way it is. And so you want to make sure you sign up for Medicare when you are eligible. So, like I said, there's an eight month window after you've left your employer health plan, but there's only sixty three days to get onto a Part D plan. So that's where you know, when you're getting close to leading your employer, you want to get with an agent like myself so that you're well aware and you can plan ahead with you know what you need to enroll in. Actually, so the Part D penalty isn't as steep as the Part B as in boy penalty.

45:21 Part D penalty, you know, it could be about I think it's like there's a mathematical equation will go over, but it's about thirty two cents a month penalty, and that adds up, obviously, and that's for lifetime. For Part B, the late enrollment penalty is ten percent a year for life of the premium. So you're thinking ten percent, well, ten percent of you know, you're paying two hundred and two dollars a month for Medicare Part B, get to pay on top of that ten percent of that, So that's another you know what, twenty dollars that you would have to pay for the lifetime of of that. Not twenty dollars, sorry, ten percent of the two of two is what you'd have to pay for the lifetime of your premiums. And so you don't want to get into that space. You want to make sure that you're in a place where you're not getting penalized and you're paying what you're supposed to be paying. So the most important thing though about all this when you're leaving the employer is that a lot of times an employer will put you on a COBRA plan and we'll offer you COBRA. Well, Cobra is not considered credible coverage by Medicare. So if you're on COBRA and you're pass that eight month window and then you try to sign up for Medicare, you will still be penalized. So keep that aware and in your minds that Cobra is not credible coverage with Medicare.

46:49 So if you are currently on Cobra and you're still within that eight month window, please see me or another reputable agent to get you signed up for Medicare so you don't get that penalty. All right. While we are getting close to closing time here it is two minutes to the end of our show, I want to thank you Andrew again for coming on our inaugural show. We're going to have great speakers and guests and sponsors in the coming weeks. We hope that you will definitely join us this following week. We are on every Tuesday, nine am Pacific time live. You can also listen to us on K four HD radio dot com. There is an app that you can download on your smartphones. So I encourage you guys to listen in. And we are excited about the potential of this show and we hope that we help thousands of more clients. We have a client base already of one thousand and fifty. We hope to double that in the next couple of years, and so we hope this is another way that we can bring on more clients where this help information for all of you guys, again, thank you for joining us and for listening, and we appreciate all of you, whether you're a current client of Prospect, an agent, small business that we work with, thank you for listening in and we medicare.

48:20 Thanks for listening. Tune into Medicare Hour and More with Peter every Tuesday at nine am Pacific time right here on KHD Radio at kfohd dot com for more real life stories from experts who medicare about you and protecting your health, your finances, and your future. See you next week.