- (Man) Wednesday wrap up, 10 four, and marker.
- Happy December.
AEP is almost over and this episo--episode.
- This episode.
- We're calling to talk about your end of AEP checklist
and some things agents have been talkin' about.
Stay tuned.
♪ Now the jingle hop has begun. ♪
♪ Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock. ♪
♪ Jingle bell chime in jingle bell time. ♪
- You know we've been listening to Christmas music
at our house since October.
- Oh, we just turned it on yesterday 'cause
we are not a godless anarchy
at our house. - You're not those people?
- No.
- Yeah. We are--
- We do not decorate early,
we do not celebrate early.
- Oh, well we are, I mean I'm like that,
but I will tell you, the day after Christmas,
or no, New Year's, boom, decorations down, done, boom.
I'm ready for spring.
- Yeah.
Okay so let's talk about AEP is almost over
for some of you, you are really exhausted.
I talked to people who were very blurry eyed this morning.
And remember there
is OEP coming.
You have a little blackout period between
December 7th and January 1st,
but there is something you can do to
help your people with MA that
you weren't able to get to during the OEP, okay.
So let's talk about how many people actually
switch during AEP.
Don't you feel like the consensus is that
all these 20 million people on med advantage shop?
- It's gonna be a huge, I picture like a stampede
of people trying to switch their plans,
but it's not the case.
- And a lot of people kick the tires,
but they don't actually move.
And this infographic from Kaiser Family Foundation
says that people in the 2016 market for 2017 change
that less than eight percent
of them voluntarily switched.
I think that's a shock to most agents because
I think they feel that more people move.
- I think every--, yeah, and even, I mean,
all around I think people think oh this AEP,
it's gonna be lalalalala, you know,
big, big, big, big, big,
because they think there's gonna be.
Because we saw a lot of movement when
it first came out.
We saw a lot of movement, new plans, this and that,
but heck, I wouldn't want to shop this stuff.
This is confusing and a bit of a drag.
- What they found is that
most people will not move.
One, some people don't know they can move.
In this day and age with all that advertising,
they still don't know. - (Rebecca) I was gonna say.
How is that that possible. - Other people just,
the majority of their research says they find
that it's too confusing.
They're happy where they are,
it's too confusing.
They either lost their agent,
and they didn't like their agent,
they bought it through a call center,
and they feel like they're alone,
and it's too daunting of a process
so they just stay where they are.
- To quote one of my favorite movies Beauty and the Beast,
if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
So involuntarily (laughs) what do you think
that means Sylvia?
- So if they are a involuntary switch,
that means that was a Medicare advantage plan exit.
So their plan pulled and they had to go somewhere else.
And this year I haven't heard of any.
- Hardly any. - Some years
we have thousands
and thousands - Right.
- And thousands.
I'm sure there were some this year,
but I haven't heard of any of 'em.
So this over here is
people who have a-- - This is interesting.
- Med supp and a Part D and you see a little bit
higher switching on Part D
and I've seen a lot of Part D movement this year.
A lot more Part D movement than I've seen
in the last three years.
- That would make more sense to me.
Shopping your drugs.
- And a lot of that is because one of the cheapest
Part D's from last year-- - (Rebecca) Right.
- Added a deductible-- - (Rebecca) That's right.
- That they've never had.
And a new one came out with much, you know like,
six or 10 dollars a month lower
and so the huge excess of movement towards
that other carrier.
- Well it's just seeming like, and I'll just say anthem,
you know, they launched their PDP this year.
And I mean, I'm floored at the amount
of traction they've gotten.
So, um.
- Lot more movement this year
on Part D-- - Lot more movement.
- Lot less movement - Yeah.
- On med advantage than
you would suspect.
- Yes.
- I have a question from Paul in Pittsburgh.
- Hi, I'm Paul from Pittsburgh.
I have a client who is starting Medicare in
about three months.
They don't have their Medicare card yet,
but we know what plan they want.
Can I submit the plan with their social
and a letter at the end?
Or do I have to wait until I have
that Medicare card number?
- Thanks Paul. Great question.
So the bottom line is if your client does not
have their new Medicare number,
they have to have it this year before
the year is up.
And that's something that our office
can help you with.
All you need to do is just reach out
to your marketer, hit us in the box here,
and we will let you know (laughs).
- The box. In the comments below.
If you don't know how to go online to
get your client their Medicare card,
if they lost it or if they don't have their new one,
go to the comments and we will teach
you how to do that.
So the answer is you cannot go ahead,
somebody said can I just put their sosh with
a T for temporary. - Or send a letter.
- So I had an agent who said he did 10 of those.
He put their sosh with the T for temporary.
Don't do that.
If you don't have their number
just put, you don't have the number.
Submit it anyway and they try to match it up.
Sometimes that works.
I did one two weeks ago and they didn't.
He applied for it, but he didn't have it yet.
I sent him the med supp,
they came back and said hey we need the number.
I said just wait a second and
two days later they got it and the whole thing went.
- (Rebecca) So they didn't mark us? That's good.
- So it's just, there's a lag.
It's a pain and it's gonna vary by
carrier how they deal with that,
but you can't use their sosh with a T.
You have to wait 'til they actually show up
in Medicare systems, so.
- Does the T represent something?
- It was temporary.
- Oh, temporary, okay.
- Yes, that's how it used to be.
So.
- We have a new, a new--
- Wait, before you get to your affirmation
I wanna say that United healthcare agents
have until December 31st to certify.
- As well as Anthem agents.
- So--
- And probably a whole bunch of other ones
I would assume.
- With, well.
- Except Humana. - Humana, their deadline was
November 30th.
So if you did not certify with Humana,
your renewals are now gone.
So call us if that happened to you and
let's see if we can do any triage.
But if you're a United healthcare or Anthem
and other agent, you have until the
end of the calendar year.
And if you do not certify,
all your renewals are gone.
So we are doing a reach out to call you.
I think we had 600 agents on the list.
- Yeah, just.
- And the first one we called,
they said look we've had a death in our office,
we're really behind, it's like okay,
but you're gonna lose all your renewals
and I can't get 'em back for you
when things calm down.
And you then have time-- - This is important, this is.
- To figure this out.
- Stay up late, call us, we'll help you
get through this, but don't,
don't be all of a sudden sweatin' it
on December 31st.
- Right, 'cause once it's gone, it's gone.
- You gone.
Hey, we have an ethics class coming up.
Sylvia's gonna be teaching it
on the 19th of December.
Everybody needs ethics correct?
For your--
- Every state requires ethics so
this class I only filed for Indiana
so this is for our local Indiana agents.
December 19th at our office here.
We are filing it-- - We are filing it.
- In other states.
- We just have our process. - So if you want us
- To come to your state
and you have five to 10 agents,
then we can bring it to your state.
- And it's three hours.
- It's three hours of ethics.
And every state has different requirements.
- Ethics is riveting.
- Some states require face to face ethics.
They won't allow you to go to web CE,
which is why we went back into business of this.
So if you need that class,
call us and we can bring it to your state as well.
- Now can I do my,
our new thing? - you can do your affirmation.
- So every week we are going to be reading
a new affirmation.
And if this one resonates with you,
we want you to--
- Go into the comments and tell us.
- Go into the comments and tell us, and--
- We will mail you the affirmation card.
- I need one of these.
And we are going to, we are going to sign these.
We're gonna autograph these.
I don't know if you realize,
but YouTube is knockin' on our door
(knocking)
for super stardom so here we go.
Trust, I trust that everything
will be okay in the end.
Partly because I simply know it is
in my gut, but also because
it's way more fun to live with trust
and confidence than to be a defensive wiener.
- Is that what it says?
- It does.
- Okay, interesting. We obviously haven't read these first.
I do wanna tell you that
if you have-- - I like it.
- Not certified, do not trust in an exception because
we have agents-- - Oh.
- That have not certified that have written
for 2020 and you will be terminated.
- A wiener.
- So we get these pleas every year.
They're like but I'm a good agent and
I've written 1700 cases and
I have this much on the books
and I've never had a complaint.
It doesn't matter.
- Right.
- And whatever excuse you had,
whatever death and disability and unfortunate event
that happened in your family, it won't matter.
- Yeah.
- Those of you that are agency owners,
this falls on you.
Make sure this is getting done.
And you're always hiring new people
and bringing new people into the system.
So even though it's the end of AEP,
I wanna bring this to you all's attention
because life happens and you
gotta get these people certified
before they self-certify appointed
their license renewed also.
- So one last thing before we go.
We want to know who has been the best
carrier this AEP to work with.
- Tell us in the comments.
- We'll take a tally
and do an informal poll.
- An informal poll.
(upbeat music)