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March 29, 2024 1:47 am
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Four Tips For Facing Medicare Open Enrollment

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

          Mary Bundy            Andrew Bird

The work week just got longer for a small handful of experts in town who are ready to help. These local professionals have been in training for the past few months to prepare for the brief period between now and Dec. 7. They are now eager to assist the 65-years-old-and-over crowd in navigating the complex annual switch-up known as Medicare open enrollment.

Open enrollment began this year on Friday, Oct. 15. During the next several weeks, all Medicare customers across the country have the option to make changes to their health coverage before everything gets locked in again for another year.

Medicare is notorious for being complex, convoluted and difficult to understand. There are dozens of options out there, many of which appear to be more or less the same. But they can have subtle differences that might pack a major impact to unsuspecting customers.

But there are resources to help seniors in making this important decision. Last week, The Progress sat down with Andrew Bird of Financial Concepts, Inc.; and Mary Bundy, an independent specialist who has become known fondly by her clients as “Medicare Mary.”

Both Mary and Andrew are independent agents, meaning that they have the ability to shop the entire range of available Medicare plans and find the best option for their customers.

These two have nearly a decade of experience between them in helping customers navigate the complex waters of Medicare open enrollment. And both were eager to give advice to the senior citizens of the Moapa and Virgin Valleys

In our interviews, Bird and Bundy provided four important tips that can help folks in making these important Medicare decisions. Here they are.

1. Be Educated
Both of the specialists said that their very first step in working with clients is to educate them.
“A typical appointment with a new client is first and foremost educating them about what Medicare is, explaining the different options and how they work,” said Bird. “I feel like if a client has a general understanding of Medicare and understands their plan, that is going to make them feel more comfortable and more at ease and they are going to be able to use their plan more efficiently.”

Bundy agreed that her first priority with clients is also to give them a solid understanding of the principles behind Medicare and the details of their plan.
“I have clients that are just tired of the complexity and they come in and say, ‘Just tell me what to get and I will sign the papers!’,” Bundy said. “But I find it so important to educate them. Because if I do that, then they can make the decisions. We can be on board with their health care together at that point. And it isn’t a situation where they are saying ‘She told me to do this and I don’t really know what is going on’. I want them to understand it fully.”

2. Sit down with a professional who knows how to listen.
Both Bundy and Bird emphasized the importance in their field of being able to ask clients the right questions and then listen closely to the answers.

Bundy reiterated that there are a wealth of options available to local Medicare customers. This can include just going with straight, traditional Medicare coverage. Many clients add to that a Medicare supplement to fill the notorious coverage gaps of Medicare. In addition, residents of Clark County have 41 different Medicare advantage plans at their disposal, each with a little different approach to benefits.

“We really need to go through a process of finding out which of all these options is best for the client,” Bundy said. “So there are a lot of questions about things like what prescriptions they are using, who is their primary care doctor, where is he/she located, what specialists do they visit regularly and more. All of that factors in to finding just the right plan for the client.”

“There is really no one size fits all with Medicare,” added Bird. “Everybody has different health issues and financial goals. So my job is really to find out what is most important to the individual client. What can they afford? What doctors are they seeing? What medications are they taking? There is really a lot that goes into it. Then based on that, I can recommend some plans that would best suit their needs.”

3. Do an annual Medicare review, even if you are happy with your current plan.
Both of the local specialists emphasized that Medicare, in all of its forms, is a constantly changing field. Plans make changes to coverage every year. Some only make small tweaks to their coverage. Other changes are much more significant. But it is nearly impossible for the average Medicare customer to keep up with all of the changes, they said.

“Every plan is probably going to have some type of change in one way or another from year to year,” Bird said. “Usually it is just small changes to copays or things like that. Every once in a while it is a bigger change like ‘We are discontinuing this plan completely. So if you do nothing we are going to migrate you into this other plan we have.’. It is always best to just come in and review the changes that have taken place and make sure that your plan is still the best for you.”

Even seemingly small changes to a plan can become a big deal for certain clients.
Bundy told about a client who had been happy with the prescription drug supplement to his plan. But then one year, the formularies of the plan suddenly changed. With the specific prescriptions he was taking, these changes would have impacted him significantly, she said.

“He was really happy with his plan as it was, but the formularies changed,” Bundy said. “So we were able to get him a different prescription drug plan that made things more affordable for him.”
“At the very least, people need to come in and review their plans every year,” Bundy said. “Because advantage plans change, prescription drug plans change. And it is hard to keep up with them.”

4. Local specialists know best
The two experts acknowledged that there are many options for people in reviewing their coverage. Open enrollment can be done over the phone or online, with distant independent agents or working directly with the insurance companies. Medicare customers can feel bombarded by all of these different options that are vying for their business.

“This time of year is the bread and butter for agents all across the country who specialize in Medicare,” said Bundy. “There are only six weeks which is a short amount of time. And I have clients who get fatigued and they ask me, ‘Could you please tell people to stop calling me?’. It is just a crazy time of year.”

Despite all of this, both Bird and Bundy emphasized the essential benefit of working with a local, live agent during open enrollment.

The greatest of these benefits is understanding the unique nature of the health care market in the small communities of northeast Clark County.
“When you call one of those 800 numbers, they don’t understand this little tri-state thing that we have going on here,” Bird said.

People in the Moapa and Virgin Valleys are just as likely to go out of state into St. George to receive care as they are to stay at home, Bird explained. Some go to Las Vegas for care. In addition, many local clients come from the towns on the Arizona Strip, which adds further complexity.

“For all you know, when you call an 800 number, you could be talking to someone in a call center on the east coast,” Bird said. “They type in your information and say, ‘Yep, there are doctors in your network.’ But they are not realizing that those doctors are all in Las Vegas. You sign on to the plan and then you get a wake up call all of a sudden when the only primary care doctors in your plan require a trip to Las Vegas.”

Bundy told of just such a story when a customer came to her after purchasing a plan over the phone.
“They lived in Littlefield, Arizona and they were sold a plan where the only specialists they could go to were in Kingman,” Bundy said. “Can you imagine having to travel all the way to Kingman instead of just a half hour to St. George? But if you are a 1-800 specialist you don’t know that important piece of geography.”

Both specialists emphasized that there is no cost benefit to customers in using online services or 800 numbers. And they don’t pay anything extra for using a live, local agent. Either way, the cost for consultation is entirely priced into the product. The customer never sees it.

“There is no out of pocket cost for the client to me directly,” Bird said. “So that is a positive to them. Whether I sell them a plan or not, they either get free advice, or they become my client. But they don’t pay me directly for my services.”

Bundy said that this fact creates a significant value for working with a local agent.
“Working with someone local allows you to build a trusting relationship with your agent,” Bundy said. “Now you have someplace to go if there are problems that arise or if there is paperwork to do or claims issues to face. You have an advocate to help you through all of that. You don’t get that with an 800 number.”

Bird acknowledged that there are many reputable companies from the city who send agents to the Mesquite area to work with local clients during open enrollment. Many of these provide excellent service, he said.

“But I’ve also heard the negative stories about agents calling local people and coming up from Vegas or wherever to sit down with a client in their home,” Bird said. “They sell them a plan that doesn’t work the way that they thought it would. And then they never hear from that agent again.”

“I live here in Mesquite,” Bird said. “I breathe here. I have a brick and mortar office here. I do business here. I spend my money in the community. I have a reputation here. That kind of relationship is worth something in this field.”

Though things are busy at this time of year, both Bundy and Bird said that they are currently scheduling appointments for both new and existing clients. With a hard deadline, and a finite time period, both recommend scheduling appointments as soon as possible.

Andrew Bird can be reached by calling 702-346-1335 to schedule an appointment. The office of Financial Concepts, Inc. is located at 355 W. Mesquite Blvd. Ste C80 in the Brickyard Plaza in Mesquite.

Mary Bundy can be reached by calling 702-544-2295 for an appointment. Bundy has a Mesquite office at 11 W. Pioneer Blvd Ste B, upstairs in the Bank of Nevada building. She also keeps office hours in downtown Overton on Mondays in the Pack CPA building at 280 S. Moapa Valley Blvd.

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