Video Transcript 

Suzanne McClain (00:02):
So what we're going to do today is just go through the process of what you need to do to request your Medicare open enrollment review to make sure that we have you 100% set up for 2027. I know it's so hard to believe we're here, but before I get too deep in the weeds, I always like to have you guys put a name with a face. So many of you call in our office and you talk with Ty or Brittany or Naomi or Tisha or Alice, and you're like, man, I wish I knew what they really look like. So I'm gonna just take a quick second, ask each of them to unmute, and I'm gonna have them just hop on here and say hello real quick. So I'm going to start first with Tisha. So, Tisha, you want to say hello?

Tisha (00:45):
Hey, everyone! I'm so glad you were able to join us to talk about Medicare open enrollment. We're excited.

Suzanne McClain (00:52):
All right. How about Alice? How about you, Alice? Go ahead.

Alice (00:56):
Hey, everyone. We're so glad that you joined us, and we're looking forward to the open enrollment this year, and looking forward to working with each and every one of you.

Suzanne McClain (01:04):
All right, and how about Ty? Go ahead.

Ty (01:08):
Hey, everyone. This will be my fourth AEP. Looking forward to serving all of you with my full heart and soul.

Suzanne McClain (01:16):
Oh, I love this. And Brittany, go right ahead.

Brittany (01:19):
Yeah. Hey, everybody. I'm also excited to get to hear some friendly, familiar faces over the phone. I look forward to all them phone calls and helping you guys out throughout the open enrollment.

Suzanne McClain (01:30):
All right, and Naomi, go right ahead. Introduce yourself.

Naomi (01:34):
Hi everyone! I'm so happy to meet all of you. I'm really excited to be working with everyone. I look forward to getting to know you all, and I will always do my very best to help, support, and serve you, however I can.

Suzanne McClain (01:48):
As you can see, our heart is really to serve you, and that is our God-given mission to help and protect you, especially when life gets complicated. And we know going into Medicare open enrollment is complicated, so we're here to help and guide you along the way. But last but not least, I'm going to turn it over to Joe, my business partner here. Joe, take it away.

Joe McClain (02:10):
Hey, everybody! It's so great to be here. And real quickly, Suzanne, Suzanne and I were talking about getting ready for this livecast, and this is her 18th annual enrollment. So wow! And it's and like everybody on the team said, like it's such a privilege to be able to serve you. And we know Medicare does it get any more complicated than Medicare, right? So it's our God-given mission to help and protect you, especially when life gets complicated. So, what I want to talk about first, before we jump into the nitty gritty of how to request your annual review, is our live event this year, and we have a few dates here. And I just wanted to let you know. I'm gonna look over here and see when they are. So they're in October, October 23rd. We have we have a one of our live live event dates, the 24th, which is Saturday, and then Monday the 26th. So we're really excited about how we're setting this up this year. We added an extra live event date because last year there was people that didn't get to come because it filled up so quick. So that's one of our things this year is you get the invite to the live event after you have requested your review, so after you go through the process that Suzanne's going to outline here, you're going to get an email that is going to allow you to click on it and reserve which day you want to come, so you can reserve your seat. We don't want anybody to miss out this year, so make sure that as soon as you can request your review, so you can be able to come to our live event. Suzanne, I is there anything else you wanted me to start out with, or is that cover everything?

Suzanne McClain (04:10):
Oh, that's good. That's good. And I said he's my business partner, but he also is my better half, so I have to share that. So, okay, what's going to happen now? You're listening. If you're watching this live, you're going to get a recording of this here either today or tomorrow, and in the recording below the recording, you're going to have a button that says “Click here to request your review. So if you're just watching this, click here to request your review. It will be right below the video. Okay. So what you're going to do? Click on the button that says “Request Your Review, and I'm going to share my screen so you can see what you're going to see. Okay. Now, if you have any questions while I go through this process, just drop them here in the chat, and our team is going to let me know what questions they are so I can make sure I address all of them. But here we go. So I'm going. Share my screen here. Give me one second. So

Joe McClain (05:02):
Suzanne, while you're sharing your screen, I just wanted to share that once we record this, we're going to add chapters to this video, so you can skip ahead or go back and rewatch something pretty easily. And we'll have those chapters divided out at the underneath this video. So that'll be people that are watching this recorded later.

Suzanne McClain (05:22):
Okay, perfect. So as you can see, my screen here it says across the top National United Medicare Advisors 2027 Annual Review. Okay, so you're going to fill in all of your information with your name, the address, etc. So let's go through. I'm just going to fill this out with you. Okay. Now you want to make sure that you fill it out exactly like your Medicare card reads. So if your name is Elizabeth but you go by Beth, make sure you type out Elizabeth if that's what your Medicare card says. Okay. All right. Let's go through here. Easton Way, and then make sure you put your county because if you're on the border, sometimes when we're doing the reviews, if you're on the border of Franklin or Delaware County, I've got to know exactly which county you reside in. Now, do you take any prescription medications? Let's say in this example, yes, I do. What pharmacy do you go to? I'm going to use, let's just say CVS, or no, let's say Wall, let's say Giant Eagle. Okay, so there's my pharmacy. Are you willing to change pharmacies if it means you can save money? Some clients, some of you say, “I love my pharmacist. I'm never changing pharmacies. So if you don't want to change or you're not willing to change, that's fine. I just need you to tell me if you're willing to change or not. In my situation, I'm gonna say yes. Okay, please enter your best email address to receive correspondence from Suzanne Tisha or the NUMA team. Now this is so so important because we will be sending out your review via email. We send you questions if we have questions. Email. So if you send me an email or put an email address in here that you never check, or maybe you send me your husband or your wife's email, but they don't ever check it, or you mistype it, then the information is not going to really do us any favors, so make sure the email address that you give us is an email address that you're going to keep checking because this is the way we will communicate with you. So I'm going to put my email address in here, Medicareadvisors.com, and then of course today's date, and then you're going to put your cell phone number. So I recommend if you have a cell phone number to put your cell phone number because we also give you keep you up to date with what's going on with your file via texting. So go ahead and put your cell phone number in here. Okay. All right. Now this is a new one that we added this year that we've not asked this in the past because I've had clients that I've done the review and I've said, “Hey, you can save 900 bucks a year if you go from this pharmacy to this pharmacy, or if you change from Company A to Company B, it'll save you 900 bucks. And client says, “Eh, it's too much of a hassle. I'm taking 10 medications. I'm doing mail order. Really, don't have any interest in changing? I just want to make sure all my medications are covered. So I would like you to go in here and answer these questions. Answer where you fit. So I prefer not to change plans regardless savings, as long as my prescriptions are all still covered. If that's you, that's fine. I need you to mark that. But like, go on here at the very end. I am I am willing to change plans for any amount of savings, even if it's only one penny per month. So if we can find a better plan for you, and this is really wrapped around your prescription drugs, if we can find a better plan for you that'll save you even a penny a month, we'll let you know. Now remember, when you do change plans, you typically get a new card. You got to take that new card to the pharmacy. If you're doing mail order, you've got to set up a new mail order. You know, with the new pharmacy. So there is, I guess, processes, as I would say, to changing plans. But if you want me, tell me where. Just tell me where you're at. Okay.

Suzanne McClain (09:20):
So in my example, I want to change plans if I can save $15 or more per month. Okay, now this is a Medicare compliant form. There's a couple of documents here that Medicare requires you to fill out in order for us to move forward. So if you don't complete these, unfortunately, we can't move forward with it. This is a compliant form giving us permission to contact you. So you're going to leave your email address here, your cell phone number, today's date, and then you're going to click right here. It says sign here, and this is you giving me an electronic signature, saying it's okay for my office to reach out to you. Take care of you. As you see, you type your name in there. It's going to populate right there. You're going to hit next. The next form here, many of you are aware of this. This is called our Scope of Appointment. Once again, a Medicare compliant form you must fill out in order for us to move forward. And this is telling us leave these boxes checked if you want us to do a full review, this is telling you, telling us you want us to look at your Medicare prescription drug plan if you have a Medicare Advantage or a Medicare Supplement. So if you uncheck any of these boxes, then that's going to cause us problems because it doesn't allow me to have full access to look at all your situation. Once again, your name will be auto-populated here. You'll leave that. Click here where it says sign in, and then once again, sign. Type your name, and then just hit sign. Okay. Once you've done that, you're going to click next. All right. So now we're going to get to some additional ExtraCare benefits that we have, Joe. I'll turn it over to you.

Joe McClain (10:59):
Yeah. So obviously we have a whole list of benefits that come with ExtraCare, Suzanne. If you could keep sharing that, that'd be great. So the the benefits and and this basically the main one a lot of people really want is the annual healthcare review, which Susanna is going through the form here for today, but this just gives us a place for you to request some of the additional ExtraCare benefits because we feel like sometimes it gets lost throughout the year, right? So like we do the monthly live casts through the first part of the year up till till we till we get we don't do it in November December, but but sometimes we feel like we don't we don't really convey all the benefits that you get with ExtraCare. So that's why we wanted to talk about it here real quick. So the first one here is the estate planning review. Now the estate planning review, basically, what it is is is well, what the the why behind it is, we feel like, or we know, we've heard that you know people do an estate plan with their attorney. Time goes by. Maybe they did it while they had kids. Time goes by, and it sits there for 1015, 20 years. You retire, you get on Medicare, you you meet us, and it's like, yeah, my estate plan is just so out of date. If something happened to me today, it would be pointless because it's talking about my kids. It's like where does like who's going to be the guardian of my kids and this and that. That time has went by so fast that it's just out of date. What this does is this is a list of questions that we put together in an interactive form, and it kind of works like this review request right here. It's just questions you're answering, filling in, and then what it does at the end when you complete it. Is it creates like a PDF that you can print out and take to your attorney, or you can maybe you're maybe you still don't you don't have that attorney anymore. You take it to a new estate planning attorney, and you're like, this is my situation now. So you can either update your old estate plan that you had or create a new one, and all of that information is right there in front of you. So that is the purpose of it. It's not we're not practicing any any anything that an attorney would normally do. Not practicing law. We're just helping you organize your situation so you can easily take it to an estate planning attorney. The next one is our retirement income review. So this next yes or no question, and what our retirement income? Wait a minute. Yeah, our retirement income review does is it's something you can request. We meet with you over Zoom, and we go through, and we call it crash testing your retirement. So, like, what the why behind this is, we found that a lot of people, a lot of our clients have what we call as a quiet worry. Like, what will happen to my spouse if something happens to me? Will I be financially okay? What happens if something happens to my spouse? Will I be okay? And we'll dig into that, and we'll look at your situation. Is there any anything that needs to be done? Are there any holes that need to be filled? Also, we take a look if if you want us to take a look at what your like your savings, what you've got set aside-is it going to last you? We kind of crash test your what you have saved. Is if there's a market downturn, are you going to be okay based on what you have it set aside in? So it's more of a just calming that. Worry of am I am I okay financially am I okay because no the the number one biggest concern in retirement is running out of money that's what they say across the surveys when they survey retirees and then number three here is the real estate review.

Joe McClain (15:21):
If you're thinking about buying a house, downsizing, selling your house, our son he's a RE/MAX Realtor, and he can come out and give you a estimate of the value if you're selling your house, what it's worth, what you would list it for, and he could potentially list it for you if you wanted him to. The nice thing about this benefit of ExtraCare is that if you buy a house through him or you sell a house through him, he's worked it out with us that he will pay us a lump sum that will take care of your ExtraCare for the rest of your life. So we've worked out a pretty good deal with him. So that's a pretty good benefit if you're thinking about buying or selling a house. And he not only is going to give you a plus service, and he serves with the same mission that we have to help and protect others, especially with like when life gets complicated. And a greater part of that benefit is if you do end up doing buying or selling a house with him, he does pay for your ExtraCare for the rest of your life. So, Suzanne, I think that covers the three benefits that are right here. Is that right? Anything else I missed?

Suzanne McClain (16:38):
Nope, you got it. So as you're going through this form, unfortunately, you do have to say yes or no to each one of these to get to to complete the form. So let's just say yes to all of them, and then we'll go down here. It says the request for Medicare review for Suzanne, or because I'm Suzanne as the client, so we will be submitted when you click the button below. If you have a spouse, you have to do a second form, a second request. So you'd want to go submit and start new form for spouse. So you do not want to put both husband and wife, you know, both of you on one form because then it just messes everything up.

Joe McClain (17:17):
Suzanne, before you do that, I just did want to mention that if you select that you would like any of those three benefits that I just talked about, we don't do anything with that until after the first of the year because Medicare is our number one priority for you to make sure you're taken care of. So if you select any of those, we'll be getting back with you the first of the year to help you with those three things. So we don't want to mix that in with getting you and taking care of your Medicare.

Suzanne McClain (17:45):
Perfect. Okay, so I've completed all this. As soon as I hit submit, then what's going to happen is it's going to pop up and tell you that the that your review request has been received. So that as long as you get this screen, you know we have received your review, and it says your annual request review has been received. Your next step is to update your Medicine Cabinet. So you will receive an email within an hour from now. This email address it is from us. So sometimes because this email address this is actually coming from your client portal. Sometimes this goes into like spam or junk. We definitely see that. So if you don't have, if you don't see an email coming to you within an hour, then you know, within an hour for sure it should be coming. But if you don't have it within 24 hours, make sure you call us, text us, or email us and say, “Hey, I didn't receive this. But before you do that, check your spam or junk. So when you get this email, it's going to say, “do-not-reply@t.insfiretech.com. That's legit. It's from us. Okay. So open that email now. I'm going to stop sharing my screen here, and I'm going to show you what the email is going to look like that you're going to receive. Okay, so now I'm going to show you what the email is going to look like. Okay, so the email, as you can see up here, it says National United Medicare Advisors, but the address is the do-not-reply@t.insfiretech.com, and it's going to say hello, your first name. So if your name is Mary Mary Smith, it's going to say hello Mary Smith. In mine, I use my own. So hello Suzanne Tess McClain. Guess what? It's that time of the year again to update your Medicine Cabinet. Blah blah blah. You read all this. You're going to click here to review and update your information. So one thing you have to remember is that the information we have in here is what what you entered in last year. So if you were taking let's just say three or four medications last year, and now. Change in your medications are completely different this year. Are you added or subtracted? It's not accurate in our system. That's why we need to update it. So you're going to click here, Advisor National United Medicare Advisors. Your phone, our phone number, our email address. Some might say to me, “Well, is this a secure site? What's going on with it? Yes, it's super secure because it has all of you. It has your personal information to be able to log in. So you're going to enter in your birthday and then your zip code, and that will give you access to your client portal. So I just put my information in here, and now it is opening up to the client self service. So this is all my personal information. So be your first, your middle, your last name, your birthday, if you want to fill out, if you're married or not, your Medicare name, which what's on your Medicare card, your Medicare number, and when your Medicare started. Okay, now obviously I don't have this information, so mine's blank, but yours is going to be there.

Joe McClain (21:01):
So, Suzanne, all of this is already going to be filled in for them?

Suzanne McClain (21:04):
already filled in for you. You're just looking over it, okay? And then you're going to have your address here now. If you've moved and you haven't told us, then we're going to have the address that we had on file for you last year. So if there's an address change, you need to let us know because you are not able to edit this information. Now, once again, your email address. Now you're going to go to next. Now here's where you're going to look. Actually, look at your Medicine Cabinet. So your Medicine Cabinet. These are the prescriptions that we have on file that you took when we did your review last year, or when we originally signed you up, whatever the last time was, we reviewed your situation. So in this example, let's say I'm taking Simvastatin, a tablet, 40 milligrams. I take one per day. Now here's something that's so important that you need to make sure you understand. So as you can see right here, it says Simvastatin Tablet, which means it's a little tab. It's not a capsule. There is a difference. So when you're looking at medications, you need to make sure that you're selecting the right one that's actually on your bottle. So let's say we're gonna. The doctor added a medication for me called Levothoxin, which is a thyroid medication. Okay, so let's just type in levothyroxine. Once you start typing, a lot of times they pop up, so you have an idea which one it is. Here's an example. So the levothyroxine comes in a tablet, or it comes in a capsule. You need to make sure you're marking what's on your bottle, so if you're taking tablet, that's what you're gonna pick, and then search, and then this drop down here will give you all the the the dosages. So let's say that I take the 50 micrograms, and I take one per day. I'm gonna leave it at 31 per day, or I'm sorry, 30 per month. Now, if you are taking a medication, the doc that you say, well, I take this as needed. Well, here's the thing: your as needed could be different than the next person's as needed. So look at the bottle and see how many prescription, how many pills is in that bottle, or what's the prescription actually written for? Is it written for 15 pills a month? Well, then put 15 per month because I want to make sure that when we're doing the quote, we do it as accurately as possible for you. Now, when you're looking at the Medicine Cabinet here, if one of your medications have changed, you're going to go in and hit the little trash can, and you'll just delete that medication. It says, “Are you sure you want to delete the that medication? Yes. So then you'll see that medication is gone.

Joe McClain (23:49):
Suzanne, what if the dosage changed on that medication? They're still taking it, but at a different dosage?

Suzanne McClain (23:57):
Okay, so let's look at, for example, let's do Simvastatin. Say you're still taking Simvastatin, but it went from 40 milligrams to a different dosage. You just let me show you one more time. You just click this blue link. It opens it up for you. Still has the drug name there. Select drug, and let's say the doctor changed you to to 20 milligrams. Just go in and change it to 20 one per day, 30 a month. Update medication, and you can see now that it now is a 20 milligram versus a 40 milligram. Then, once you've completed that page, you're going to click next, and then what pharmacy are you going to go to? Now, this is like I I typed in here Giant Eagle Pharmacy, but if you want to do mail order, you need to make sure you mark mail order. So when we run the quotes, we're looking at mail order the best the best price from mail order for you. If you want to do CVS or Giant Eagle or Walgreens or Walmart or Costco or whatever, that's fine. Just put in whatever pharmacy that you go to, okay? And if. This one is the way that let's say that Giant Eagle's good. I'm not going to change anything. Just leave it and click next. Now, if you're taking or if you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, as you know, many Medicare Advantage plans have the networks. So they have networks of doctors and hospitals. We want to make sure that your doctors and hospitals are on the plan that you're currently in, so we need to make sure that we have updated list of your doctors and hospitals that you use. So,

Joe McClain (25:30):
Suzanne, real quick, just give anybody that may have forgot what the difference between a Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement is how they can tell what they have pretty quickly.

Suzanne McClain (25:40):
So, the Medicare Advantage plans, most of those are the $0 plans that you basically have one card for doctors and hospitals and prescriptions. You take it to the doctor hospital prescriptions. They're your cheaper $0 Medicare Advantage plans where you pay copays out of pocket for pretty much everything you have done, and you must stay in the network. A Medicare Supplement plan. You have a Medicare Supplement company, which might be let's just say Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield or Aetna Humana or whoever, and then you have a prescription card that's separate. So you technically have two separate things. Your Medicare Supplement is typically more expensive because it gives you a little more freedom, little more, a lot more comprehensive coverage, but you're paying more for that. So if you have a Medicare Advantage, typically you're at one of the $0 or real low dollar premium plans with a higher out of pocket.

Joe McClain (26:41):
Amy has a question. What if you have both mail order and pharmacy meds?

Suzanne McClain (26:48):
What I would do is I would put in the pharmacy. It's a great question because I would put in the pharmacy that your local pharmacy that you want, so we can make sure that whatever your local pharmacy is is preferred to is preferred to the plan that we recommend for you, and then pretty much all the Medicare prescription drug plans have a mail order option. So, but we for sure want to make sure that if you need to go to a local pharmacy, that you're going to a preferred pharmacy. That's a great question. Okay, so if you want to add a provider, you're just clicking up here, adding a provider. Oops, here we go, and we can add right here. So let's say you want to add a primary care doctor within your zip code, you can search by name if you want to, or you can just get a list of all the providers. So let's say that it's this provider that you decided we want to select that provider, and then we want to save, and we can see here that it's added now to the list as your primary care provider. Then after you're done adding your doctors now, like I said, if you're on a Medicare Supplement, we don't need the doctor or hospital update because remember, with a Medicare Supplement, you can go to any doctor, any hospital that takes Medicare in the U.S. So these are mainly for Medicare Advantage, and then click next. Now here's your summary. It has your name, your birthday, all your Medicare information, your address, your phone number, your email address, your medications, what pharmacy you want to go to, all of your doctors. Once that is complete and you know that that's accurate, you can hit confirm and save. Once you hit confirm to save, it says successfully updated your information. You may now close the page. Now, this wasn't a thing that we had a problem with last year. Is it would come right back here to this main page, and you might think, “Why got to do this again? Because it didn't save. Well, if it's that that green bar came up at the top that said you may close the page because it's been saved. You don't need to do it again. Okay, if you go in and start doing this again, what happens on RN is it shows us. Let me stop sharing so I can see more. What it shows us that you're not completely done. So it shows us that it's the that the client portal is still open, and you're still editing your information. So once you've completed it once, you're good. Okay. Now you might say, okay, well now I'm doing this in September, and I have a doctor's appointment in November, and my medications might change. What should I do? That's a question we get, I think, every single year. I try to address it to make sure people understand. So I still think you need to request your review. Request your review regardless, so you get your your your file gets put in queue for the review. Now, with that being said, let's say you have a doctor appointment in late October, or maybe. Even early December, and you're like, I just don't know if my medications are going to change, so I don't know if my information is going to be accurate. Once you request your review, reach out to our office via email, text, or phone, and just say, Hey, pull our pull my file and put it on hold because I have a doctor appointment november 10, we'll document your file. We'll pull it on hold, and we'll wait for you to give us a call back after that doctor appointment and tell us, hey, my medications changed, or maybe they didn't change, and give us that update. But if you don't request the review, your file is not going in queue for us to start working on it.

Joe McClain (30:40):
Hey, Suzanne, two couple questions here. So number one question was: Do me and my wife need to complete these forms? So separately, I'm assuming he's asking you need to do this separately, right?

Suzanne McClain (30:54):
Yes. So remember, with Medicare, everything is pers is personal. So I know many of you have you know worked on employer plans where it was you know employee plus spouse or employee plus family in the Medicare world everything is extremely individual under your own Medicare numbers. So if you have a spouse, you need to have yours complete for you and then hers complete for her. So we can't mingle them together. Like if you enter your medications on her file, I don't know the difference. So when I go in to do the review, or Tisha, or whoever's working on your review, they go and look at. We don't know that that medication belongs to you. So make sure you only put your information in your client portal. If you want hers, she has to do it in her client portal. Okay,

Joe McClain (31:45):
very good. Next question is: What if you use multiple pharmacies due to changes to production medicine? Stores change manufacturers of meds often, which impacts us without notice. That is when I've switched to the pharmacy. Switched the pharmacy to another one that has better pricing.

Suzanne McClain (32:05):
So when we're doing the quote, we can only quote on one pharmacy. However, if there's a specific medication that you say, well, I can only get this at the Myers pharmacy, and I have to get it here because maybe that particular manufacturer just reach out to us so we know to look at that pharmacy for that medication. Now, here's one thing I'll tell you: as you're doing the the the update of the medications and things like that, excuse me. Remember that compound medications are not covered. So if you're taking a compound medication, you're not going to find that in that drop down. So if you're taking a compound medication, unfortunately, Medicare Part D plans don't cover it. There's no way for you to put it in there. Same with over the counter medications. So if you're taking an over the counter, there's no place to list those because they're not in that drop down because Medicare prescription drug plans don't cover that. The other one that I see is, you know, some of the really expensive medications. I have clients that says, “Hey, I'm getting this through the hospital through a grant, or I'm getting it through the manufacturer, and I don't pay anything for it because I'm getting it through the manufacturer or a discount program or a grant or a scholarship or something like that that does not go through my insurance. So here's the key: if you enter that medication into your client portal, we then are we don't know that you are getting it through somebody else. We're going to run your review as if it needs to go through a prescription drug plan, and that could definitely skew your numbers, because if you're currently getting it through a manufacturer, then we don't want that medication added to your client portal because we don't want to have to put that in your the number because it could tell us it's it could say we'll change this plan because of that particular medication. When really, if we didn't have that medication in, I could say this is the plan for you. So be careful. Don't add in plans that are not being ran through insurance, or not. I'm sorry. Don't add in prescriptions that are not running through the insurance, then you're getting scholarships for grants for manufacturer assistance for.

Joe McClain (34:26):
Okay, question. Couple more questions. Client said, “I recently started needing an eye injection for AMD, which is administered doctor's office. Do I have to list this medication on the on in the client portal?

Joe McClain (34:42):
That pays for the bulk of the injection, and my current Medicare Supplement pays for the covered balance.

Suzanne McClain (34:48):
Okay, that's a great question. So any prescription where you go to a facility and have it administered, such as like a Prolea shot or the eye injection. Shot, or let's say that you have a autoimmune disease, and you have to go to a facility, go into an infusion center where they, you know, put an IV and give you medication through that. Those prescriptions all go under the medical piece because you're going into a facility, having something administered there, and leaving that facility, so that goes under the outpatient, which is Medicare Part B, as in boy. So no, we do not want you to enter that in your client portal because remember, your client portal is for your Part D, as in drug benefit, which is typically your maintenance medications.

Joe McClain (35:41):
Okay, so another question here about the FreeStyle Libre continuous glucose monitor. Does something like that also fall under Part B?

Suzanne McClain (35:56):
Yeah, so the way that that works, it that was extremely tricky because there is nowhere in the client portal for you to add that, then that typically falls under your Part B. If I believe right, if I can maybe have Tisha weigh in on that for a second, I'm gonna have her double check that before she weighs in, because we have some, we've had some problems with that freestyle libre on how it's covered, but there is no place for you to add that in the client portal. Um, it. I'm gonna give Tisha a couple minutes to research that and to jump in here and talk about that. Was there? Okay, why

Joe McClain (36:31):
While she's doing that, Um, so if somebody has, say, a doctor's appointment coming up in the next couple months, um, where they might be changing a prescription or something like that. What's what's what do you want them to do?

Suzanne McClain (36:46):
So remember, if you have a doctor appointment coming up, still request your review. I need your file to get in the queue for us to review it. Okay, but when you but but if you know you have the doctor appointment, reach out to our office. We'll pull your file, note it, and say, you know, so and so has an appointment on X Y Z date, and we'll just pull that file out until you call us back and say, okay, I went to the doctor, and this is what happened. Is there any other questions?

Joe McClain (37:16):
Yeah, so same deal. If something happened, maybe they get their review by I don't know end of October. Maybe they come to the event. They get the review, but then they go to the doctor and something changes. Then what?

Suzanne McClain (37:29):
So we we we definitely have that where we'll complete your review. We'll send you the review. We'll tell you either stay with where you're at or you need to change to X Y Z company. And all of a sudden you come down with something. You go to the doctor. The doctor says, “Okay, now we're going to add a blood pressure medicine that you need to take every single day. If you go to the doctor and your meds change after you received your review, you must reach out to us and let us know that there's been a change. Because remember, we're only going off of what you've given us. So if something changes, make sure you reach out to us and say, “Hey, this changed. Now we can quickly-I won't say quickly because it's busy season, right? We can look at your situation and say, “Okay, well, yes, they added that medication, but yes, it's covered under this plan, or no, it's not. Maybe we need to move you again to a different plan because it all depends on what the medication might be.

Joe McClain (38:19):
Okay, sounds good. I think Tisha is ready to chime in here. So Tisha, go ahead.

Tisha (38:24):
Okay. So for the freestyle libre, it depends on the plan that you have. Number one. So if you're on a Medicare Supplement plan, that's going to fall under Part B for durable medical equipment. If you're on a Medicare Advantage plan, that's also going to fall under Part B, but the Advantage plans normally you're going to pay a co-insurance amount of around 20% So that's how that works on there. Now, usually, Suzanne, isn't it like if you have to have needles or something like that, that would fall under Part D is in drug, correct?

Suzanne McClain (38:58):
Yeah, yeah, and that that's where it gets a little complicated. That's why I wanted her to double check in it. If you guys run into any type of problems with those continuous glucose, I mean, reach out to us because we'll help you work with the pharmacy just to make sure that you're that it's being billed correctly because we want to make sure that you're paying the least amount for it. Let's talk a little bit about what our deadline is here for you to request your review. So we know this is the end of August. You're going to probably request your review within the next few days. Hopefully, when we send you the email and you request your review, remember the month of September is when we're collecting your data. So we're spending pretty much the whole month of September with you updating your Medicine Cabinet, making sure that we have everything ready to move forward. So we have a deadline in our office. As if you want us to do your review, you have to have the request submitted to us before October 1. So October 1st is the harsh deadline. So you might say, well, Suzanne, open enrollment don't even start till October 15. Why are you saying we have this deadline? So I always go back to like my accountant. So we all know that April 15 is is the tax deadline, but I can't go to my accountant's office on April 13 or April 10 and drop my file in his lap and say, hey, I need you to do my taxes because he's going to say you're following an extension. We're not doing it. So what I need you guys to do because I want to make sure that we take 100% care, a plus care for you, and so we have to have a deadline in our office if you want to review. October 1 is the deadline for that review, so when the government finally opens up all of our quoting software after October 1, we'll have all of the preliminary work done to where we can start working on your particular situation, quoting it, and making sure they're done. And remember, at our live event, if you come to the live event, I'm going to have your review at the live event. So what that means is I can't be having you update your Medicine Cabinet in October, like late October, in hopes I can get it done before the event. It just doesn't work like that. So the month of September, you're going to be getting a lot of information from us, a lot of email back and forth because we want you to request it. We want you to make sure that it's the deadline in our office is October 1 to get that review done. Now, with that being said, we always have this goal in our office here of we want to have everybody that has requested a review, all of our ExtraCare members. We want all of their plans reviewed. You guys get the emails. We have all the changes, applications submitted, and everything before Thanksgiving. Because I always say the last thing you want to do is be sitting down at Thanksgiving dinner, going, “I don't know when Suzanne's office is going to get back in touch with me. I just don't know if my drugs are going to be covered this year. I want you to have the peace of mind to know when you're sitting down and enjoying your family time because family is so important. Is you're not worried about your prescription drugs, you're not worried about your doctors, you're not worried about you know how's my insurance going to work for me next year. So our goal in our office, this is our internal goal. Is we like to have every review done and sent out before the week of Thanksgiving. So we make that a huge goal in our office because if we can have all of that done on our end, I like to give my team that week off of Thanksgiving because the way I feel is family is so important. Life moves so quickly. Our kids grow up so fast. I want them to take time with their family, but I can't allow that to happen if we can't have all the work done. So we're asking you to please make sure.

Suzanne McClain (42:59):
Well, we'll just tell you the deadline's October 1. If you want the review, as we're emailing you, we need you to be responsive to us. If we're saying, “Hey, your client portal is not done, and you're having a problem with it, reach out to our office so we can help you get that client portal done. If you're having a problem with an application, we reach out to us. We are here to help you in every way. Joe, is there any other questions?

Joe McClain (43:21):
Yeah, I got another question. Got a couple things. So we still want to talk about the live event, but you know we talk about the deadline of being October 1. But if you're waiting till October 1 to request the review, chances are very good you're missing out on the live event because those seats they there were people that did not get it get to come to the live event last year because they waited too long to get their Medicine Cabinet updated, request their review, and update their Medicine Cabinet. Remember, you do not get the email to that that allows you to reserve your seat at the live event until you have completed your Medicine Cabinet and your client portal is complete, as Suzanne has explained here. So we don't want anybody to miss out. So please do not wait till October 1 to do this. Okay, next question is, and if anybody else has any other prescription drug questions or submitting your request or filling in your client portal, please post them here so we don't miss anybody. So Joe says in November I am having a major spine slash neck surgery. You will be contacted before and after the surgery. What happens if there are changes to meds in November or after January 1?

Suzanne McClain (44:41):
Okay, so that's a big question because here's the situation: we have legally we have until December 7 to make a change. Okay, so let's say you go and have that spine surgery done in November, and November 30, all of a sudden the doctor says you're going to be on these five. Medications for the next two years, then you need to reach out to us. We have till December 7 to to make that change to where Medicare will allow it. Okay, if we get past December 7, there's nothing we can do until open enrollment the next year. So if your medications change just to say January 1, unfortunately you're stuck on that Medicare prescription drug plan until open enrollment next year, which then starts the prescription plan the first of 2028. So, whoever asked this question, just make sure you stay very close in contact with our office, so we can make sure that we don't miss any deadlines and making sure we have you 100% taken care of during this really intense surgery, and we'll be praying for you during the surgery. So please let us know who you are, so I can.

Joe McClain (45:50):
Right on. So the other question was: somebody wanted to know if they could bring their spouse to the live event. Yes, absolutely. Just make sure that when you reserve the seat, you reserve one for them because there are limited seats in the room. If you were at our event last year, it was a little tight. We had a lot of seats in that room. We're going to have actually less seats in the room this year to give a little bit more space. So, but we did add one extra day. So we had another question about when the events are. So Friday, October 23, is is one, and that's going to be at 1 p.m. Saturday, October 24, at 9 a.m. is the next one, and then Monday, October 26 at at 9 a.m. Yeah. So and then yeah, that's it for the live events. Let's see what the next question is here. Okay. The question is, you can doctor what he might put you on prior to the surgery. I'm not sure exactly where they're going with that. Maybe you can ask the doctor what they might put you on prior to the surgery. So that could be a possibility for anybody that has a surgery coming up.

Suzanne McClain (47:27):
Okay, so the last thing before we close out, if there's no more questions, is this is the question. This is kind of the comment I get each year: is Suzanne the TV ads, the phone calls, the texts, the voicemails, the mail I get in the mail, all this stuff. Everybody saying I should buy their plan, I should enroll in this plan, I should do this. I just want to let you know to rest assured, don't let the the noise cloud your mind, because we're advisors. We have access to all of those things. We have the Advantage plans, we have the Medicare Supplements, and what we do is we have your information personally. And remember, we've had the conversation with you. What's important to you? So you might have one plan that sends you a flyer that says, “Hey, you can get $3,000 of dental, and that may be whoa, that's intriguing. Well, what about the medical side? And maybe the medical side is really what's important to you because we've already talked about it before. So if you have any questions or you get something and you're like, “Hey, I just need you to explain this to me, reach out to us, but don't let the noise that's getting ready to come down the road distract you from knowing that we've got your back. We're here to take care of you and to make sure that you're comfortable with every decision that we've made with you on the Medicare side. I think I just saw another question pop in.

Joe McClain (48:49):
Yeah. So another one is my prescription drug company has always refilled my very long term eye drop for 90 days. As of June, Humana will only approve a refill for 30 days. Why is that?

Suzanne McClain (49:04):
I wish I could answer that because what I am seeing. Well, I will just be straightforward. What I'm seeing is a lot of these insurance companies are starting to cut back on what they cover, what they approve, and how many days they're doing it. And it's not just Humana; it's a lot of the insurance companies as a whole, I'm just seeing a lot of transition. So I don't know who asked that question, but I wish I had the answer for you. I can't tell you why they're only doing 30 days, but there's a good chance if they're only doing 30 days, that another insurance company would do the same instead of 90 days, cutting it down to 30 days.

Joe McClain (49:38):
Okay, Suzanne, another question: Do you go off the EOB to determine the 2026 cost for a client because they don't actually match what the client paid? So you don't go off the EOB, that correct?

Suzanne McClain (49:57):
I'm trying to make sure I understand the question. So I'm as. Assuming what whoever's asking this question is the flyers or the the notices you get in the mail from CMS that says you picked up this medication and this is how much you paid this is how much the insurance company paid this is what that is your total that's probably what you're talking about so let me explain how we do that no I cannot go off of that because I don't see that, what we go off of is our quoting software feeds into the government site that says we're going to. Then it's just an estimate. It's as close estimate as we can because we're saying these are the medications. This is how often they're getting filled. This is a pharmacy. What's the projected cost for the year, but let me give an example. There might be three. Let's just say one medication that has three different manufacturers. So, like this just happened to one of my clients. They went to pick up a prescription, and at the pharmacy, they had three different manufacturers for one medication. So they went in, and that medication was more expensive under a specific manufacturer than another manufacturer. And they said, “Well, can you give me the price difference on another manufacturer? And it was a few dollars cheaper. So that then is going to set the EOB off because what I'm using is just an estimate when we're doing the the reviews because that's all we can go off is just the estimate.

Joe McClain (51:28):
very good. So we have another question coming in. I'm not sure. Okay, so it says this is 2026 cost for comparison to projected 2027, so that was a follow up to the last question. Does that make sense compared to what you were saying?

Suzanne McClain (51:50):
So when we do the review for this year, we're going to say, hey, if you stay on your current plan, it's going to cost you X amount of dollars for 2027. If we think you should go to a new plan, it's going to cost you X amount of dollars. I don't really understand the question when you're asking the difference between 26 and 27. So I'm not sure who that is, but just reach out to us and see if we can help you that way.

Joe McClain (52:12):
Yeah, that's good. So I just want to real quickly talk about the live event. I know this we're creeping up on an hour here, but the live event. So it's going to be a little bit shorter this year. We're going to try to do our best to keep it to two hours. We're still going to deliver your your review there. We're still going to cover the good, bad, and ugly of Medicare that's happened in the last year. So our number one goal with the live event, this is what we always talk about, is whatever we do at the event, it just can't be boring, which you know can be a challenge with Medicare sometimes, right? So we're gonna have a good time there. We also want to do something new this year. So Suzanne, what is that new thing that we're gonna do this year?

Suzanne McClain (52:58):
So this year we're gonna have what we call a brag table. Now I know that sounds silly, okay? But Joe and I were at a conference not very long ago, and when we walked into that conference, they had a brag table, and there was so much stuff on that brag table. And let me give you an example: anybody that had done anything they were super proud of, they brought. So if you wrote a book, you brought the book. If you ran a marathon and you're so proud that you ran that marathon, they brought a picture of their self at the finish line. You know, rah rah rah. Just you know, ran that marathon. That was huge to them. So it was just so neat. There was like another another couple that was there that opened their restaurant, so they had a photo of like the ribbon cutting of them opening the restaurant, and I want to get to know you guys better. Our office, our team wants to get to know you. We want to know what you guys are so good at and what have you accomplished that you're so proud of. So the day of our live events, we want you to bring something now. I want you to leave it there because whatever you bring, you're gifting me, and I'm going to put it in our office so we can look up and say, “Hey, so and so completed a marathon. So and so wrote a book, and we knew nothing about that book. So we do have this brag table. We're super excited to see what you guys have done that I know nothing about. So I hope that you participate, Joe.

Joe McClain (54:28):
That's great. So bring it, but prepare to whatever you bring to leave with us because we're gonna have a brag shelf here in our office and something that we can look at and be reminded of how amazing all of you are. If you don't want to bring anything, that's fine. This is completely optional.

Suzanne McClain (54:47):
Just for fun.

Joe McClain (54:48):
Yeah. So final final thing is, you know, we we always want to do a great job for you and anybody else that you send our way. We're here to do a great job for them. You know what our mission is. We're here to help and protect others, especially when life gets complicated. And we want to do that for as many people as possible. So refer your friends to us. Have them call us or send an email. Copy your friend in and recommend us if there's anything that we can help them with Medicare. A great first step is Suzanne wrote the book on navigating the Medicare maze. Suzanne, you got a copy there somewhere.

Suzanne McClain (55:35):
Yep, here's a copy right here in the email. Actually, or yeah, in the email we send out here in a couple days or today or tomorrow, where you can request your review. There'll also be a place to request a copy of the book for you to pass on to your friends, family, relatives, whoever. But yes, it is navigating the Medicare maze, where we put the joy in the Medicare process. Anything else, Joe? Before we get off here,

Joe McClain (55:57):
yeah. So last question from a client is just please review the immediate next steps. What are the next steps here going forward, and so they know exactly what to do.

Suzanne McClain (56:08):
Okay, immediate next step is either today or tomorrow. You're going to get an email from us. In that email, there's going to be a link to click on that's going to take you to this video. Right below this video is going to be a box that says “Request my review, my annual review. You're going to click on that and “Request your review. It's going to take you to that form that I went through. Okay, after you complete that form within 24 hours, actually within probably an hour, you're going to receive another email from us for you to update your Medicine Cabinet. But if I can ask you to do me a favor, keep answering your emails, your text, or calls. If we call you, email you, or text you, please respond, because what we're trying to do is we're keeping up with you to make sure we don't drop the ball on anything, and that you don't drop the ball. We're not trying to be annoying, I promise. But we're just trying to make sure that we get you taken care of. Any last things?

Joe McClain (57:10):
No, we just have some people commenting that you know they've recommended us before, which we appreciate every single referral you send our way. We really appreciate that, and we will email all of you that is an Extra Care member. So everybody on here will get an email, including everybody that's an Extra Care member. So you'll get the email tomorrow with this on your next steps, and you'll be able to get started. So we appreciate everybody hanging with us for an hour. Thanks so much. I kind of cringed that this went an hour long, but we appreciate all of you. All of all of you. All of our clients are amazing, and we appreciate you so so much, Suzanne. Last word.

Suzanne McClain (57:56):
Last words: make it a great fall and winter. Look for our emails. We want to take care of you, but we need you to respond. And we love serving you.

Joe McClain (58:05):
Okay, so we just got another question right before the end here. Somebody wanted to know say where the live event is. It will be in the email that you get. So we're not putting it on here. We don't want anybody to randomly show up that did not register. So it will be in the email after you finish your client portal and submit it. You'll get that email from us to reserve your seat for the live event. It'll have all the details about it, when it is, where it is, and all that good stuff. And if there's anything missing, you're welcome to email us after the fact and ask any questions. So that is it. Thank you so much. Appreciate all of you being NUMA clients and NUMA Extra Care clients. Thanks so much. See ya.