E23_ Medicare broker deep dive - interview with Matt Gibson from 90 Days From Retirement === Alex: [00:00:00] Okay. We are back now with our next episode and we are so excited to talk to Matt Gibson today from 90 Days from Retirement. And before we get into that, we do again want to mention that we've recently launched our new newsletter called Aging Here to help keep all the folks in the. Aging in place and senior services market up to date with all of the latest changes in our industry. So let me pass it on to, to Amy if you wanna help introduce Matt and, and take it from there. Amy: Thank you, Alex. Again, it's always so fun to be back post covid. I am never [00:01:00] gonna get sick and tired of saying that. Anyways I really wanted to welcome our next guest. One of the things that we did notice in our sort of stats and sort of things that we can get out of. Our podcasting and out of our newsletter that we've already launched is we have a lot of folks from the insurance sales side that seem to be really interested in understanding what we do. One of the neat things about somebody who is in the original me Medicare market is they don't always know how people purchase their insurance products. So I think today's guest is gonna help us to understand how. An individual who is aging and potentially going to be retiring, how are they actually going to get that insurance after they retire? So 90 days from retirement. What a great name. Why don't you tell us about all of this? Tell us what's going on in your, [00:02:00] in your neck of the woods in Utah. Sure, Guest: sure. So, 90 days from, I'm gonna extend that 90 days from retirement.com. That's our website. And we, we are all about education. From the very beginnings of our, our history, our, our agency has been around 13 years. My business partner and I both came from the carrier side. We're both directors of sales different competing carriers, and we jumped into the Medicare space. But from the very beginning, we didn't wanna do what all the rest of the agents were doing, and that was buying leads of people turning 65. We wanted to do it a little bit different, so we've never done that. And so we've provided edu, an education platform, and 90 days from retirement.com, we have, I don't know, dozens and dozens of educational videos. So anyway, that's kind of our, our, our niche. And so, We, we know that people, [00:03:00] just by nature of our industry, as they're turning 65, they don't, in some ways, they don't really have to go out and look for help because they are absolutely bombarded. They get. Two or three pieces of, of Medicare junk mail every single day in their mailbox. It could be from an insurance carrier, it could be from an insurance agent or an agency. Some of them might be inviting them to a steak dinner. Some of them are financial planners, but there's a lot of Medicare stuff. They don't have to go very far if they wanna use. That, you know, that source and fill out a reply card. They're getting tons of, tons of unsolicited phone calls from people all over the country saying, Hey, I understand that you're turning 65 and I'd like to help you. So that's, that's the way that a lot of people are getting it. We've been fortunate in that our education platform [00:04:00] allows people to say, oh, I heard that guy. I think I like what he's saying and he's not pestering me over and over on the phone. I'm gonna keep his contact and when I'm ready, I'm calling them. That's kind of how we have evolved, if that's kind of, that's kind of a long answer to your short question. Oh, that, no, Amy: that's really interesting. So, let me go back to one thing. How does anybody know that I'm turning 65? Where does that information come from? That's a little Guest: scary. Oh, it's all, it's all public information. There are, oh, Companies that their, their entire business model is buying data of people turning 65, generating leads and selling those leads. And what what's kind of sad is for most agents in that space that are, that are willing to spend, you know, a couple thousand dollars a month and buying leads. They're not buying unique [00:05:00] leads that lead, that same lead might be sold to a hundred different agents, of course. Oh, Alex: that Guest: is brilliant. Amy: And then probably resold from there. Guest: Yeah. It's pathetic. And many of those leads aren't even qualified leads they're supposed to be, you know, in our industry we have a lot of restrictions and a lot of. Some of them, or I'm gonna say worthwhile marketing guidelines that we have to adhere to. There's a lot of silliness in our industry. I'll, I'm just gonna say but one of the rules that, and we have to do a certification every fall with every carrier that we're gonna sell, and part of that certification is marketing rules. And one of those rules is you cannot make an unsolicited. Phone call to someone to sell them a Medicare Advantage or a Medicare Part D drug plan yet. Thousand, literally probably 10,000 times [00:06:00] a day in America. That rule is broken by agents that are just saying, I don't care. No one's policing that. So I'm gonna just call these people and if they, if I get complained about, I'm gonna say, well, I wasn't calling about an advantage plan. I was calling about a supplement plan or something. So, oh, so that rule is specific to MA and not to supplement. Alex: It's. Guest: My God. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So can, Alex: let's start at the highest level, Matt. Tell us a little bit about like what are the main products you sell and resummarize for the audience? The difference Guest: between the two. Sure. Essentially there's two in the Medicare space, you have two choices. You can go down the space of original Medicare and then add a Medicare supplement plan to go with that. And I'm gonna add to that some, some people know it by its other name, not a supplement, but by a Medigap plan. Those two terms mean exactly the [00:07:00] same thing. Medicare pays first and then that Medigap. Plan comes in and says, oh, we see if Medicare didn't have that deductible, we're gonna pay that and it didn't cover that co-insurance, we're gonna pay that. That's in a, that's kind of a, a very nutshell of how Medigap or Medicare supplement plans work. So that's, that's one path that someone can take as they're going on Medicare for the first time. The other path is absolutely opposite of that, and it's called. The technical term, and you said it early, Amy part C, but honestly, no one ever comes in my office and says, Oh, I've been doing my homework. I've read the Medicare and You book, and what I really, part C, never, never, never, never. They say I think I want an advantage plan, or maybe I want a Medicare advantage plan, but never I want part C. They might say, what is Part C? [00:08:00] So that's option number two. And the, and do you want, I don't know how deep dive you want me to go into that at this moment in time? You want me to? All right. So here, here's how an advantage plan works. So they are, Essentially a replacement policy for Medicare. When someone signs up for a Medicare Advantage plan, the very first things that happen and whether they're calling directly into an insurance company, maybe they did fill out a. A reply card to an insurance carrier and they, or they called that toll-free number on that card, and they went directly to an insurance company, or they went through an insurance broker like us. When that application is taken and the, and it gets to the insurance carrier, the first thing that they're gonna do, they get to tap into the Medicare database to verify that you have Medicare parts [00:09:00] A and B. You have to have A and B effective when that advantage plan goes into place number two, as soon as they verify that, and this is all done electronically in the blink of an eye. But they're essentially notifying Medicare to say, Hey Medicare, guess what? We got another A Advantage client today. Go ahead and turn off all of your responsibility of part A and B. Financial responsibility. Turn that off. Go ahead. Shift it to us. We will take it from here. We'll pay their claims. We'll do all the administration, we'll provide their benefits. We'll provide their provider net that we want them to stay within, whether that, whether that's an HMO or P P O. We're gonna do all of that. We're taking all of the risk. And oh, by the way, Medicare, [00:10:00] remember we have an agreement. As soon as you turn it off, you have to pay us a monthly fee that we have agreed upon. And those fees are not little, little dollars. They're a lot of dollars. And, and, and both Medicare and the insurance companies work together and they, they both like that arrangement. Medicare has a fixed dollar amount that they just budget and say, great, we just, we pay that amount. We're shifting it done. And the insurance company, they're not stupid, they're very bright. They have smart people called actuaries, and they are designing benefits to fit within the dollars that they're receiving from Medicare. That's, that's how they operate. Yeah. And because of those dollars, most of the advantage plans have zero monthly premium. And, and, and when I do speaking engagements, when I [00:11:00] meet with people, I'm gonna tell 'em just what I told you. Because when we get to the point of saying, here's an advantage plan, and it's zero premium without the backstory, they might go, Whoa, whoa. I've always had, had to pay for health insurance. How come? How come they're giving that away? It can't be any good if they're just trying to give it away for zero. Well, they, they're getting paid and it's hundreds and hundreds of dollars of what they're, they're getting paid. Oh, and by the way these insurance companies, many of them say, well, we're not for profit. Yeah, that's a, that's another podcast, right? Yeah. So, but they're all profit driven insurance companies. But you know what? There's profit driven insurance companies for everything that we touch and feel in our lives. So that's, that's another thing. So anyway, yeah. Thank you for that help. What, what we're talking about. Yeah, Alex: that's wonderful. [00:12:00] And we've done some deep dives in the past on all that. So I, I think that that's a great recap for everybody. So Matt, tell us a little bit on the broker side about like, What, what's, how does it work in terms of what sort of commission and you can give us a range, maybe is earned on a Medigap policy versus an MA policy, and then like how do you even arrange for that? Do you have to contract with the different plans in order to earn a commission or is it like, can anybody just start becoming a Medicare broker? How does that all work? Amy: Oh my God. Did you just open the competitive Alex: marketplace? No, I'm trying to understand. Well, this, this is what we do here, Guest: right? We try. Amy: Yeah, I know. We need to figure out how anybody does this. Yeah. Guest: All right. We just cracked open the vault and you know the safe is opened. Oh my gosh. So Yes, in, in our world, we have to be number one. We have to be insurance licensed for health insurance. [00:13:00] Most of us are health and life insurance. You know, brokers, that's a whole different license than say a property and casualty license. Next, you have to contract with specific insurance companies, whether it's an Medicare Advantage product or a supplement product. You ha you're gonna contract with those companies. Most of our industry is driven by a field marketing operation or an F M O where. They hold the, the master contract and then they contract with agents below that. It's, it is silly. I honestly, I think that's silly, but that's, that's our world. You might have someone in between the FMO and the producing agent, you know, general marketing agent or something like that, but the, the commissions slow down. So from a producer standpoint, In order for us to sell their product, besides being licensed with them, [00:14:00] especially, well, more specifically on the MA side, we have to be certified, we have to go through a testing process besides our license. Every carrier that we sell their Medicare Advantage product we have to go through their training process. It's all online nowadays. Oh, wow. There's, there's a pretty fair amount of information. You you might spend four hours per carrier every single year to sell and retain their commissions. So, you know, a broker like us in our market, Just here in Utah, we have about eight carriers. So guess what we're doing the last part of the summer and into, you know, August, September is we're doing, we're re-certifying and there's a national certification called AHIP that we have to do. And that's, you know, maybe another four hours of studying and then passing these tests. And the [00:15:00] tests. They, they, they're not. They're not all spec standardized per se, and so you might have one carrier that's pretty easy, pretty easy. They want people passing and selling their product. And then you have others that are incredibly difficult. I, I mean, crazy. And they might have, you know, a dozen different modules and you have to pass all of those modules with a 90% pass rate. You get three chances, or, and, or you're out and you and it, but it makes Amy: sense. But it makes sense. They don't want you to sell something and then they get complaints later, right? Like, oh sure, they cover your, you know, orthodontics or whatever it is, and then the next thing you know, they're like, but Bob said they covered my orthodontics. I mean, there is a. You know, a slow and steady Right. Reason for them. Right. To want you to be well trained. That's so Guest: interesting. Yeah. So there's, you know, there's technical like marketing guidelines and the Medicare [00:16:00] nuts and bolts, A and B, et cetera. And then they have product testing as well. So it's, it, it's pretty in depth to get to the point of actually selling a product. Amy: Oh my God, I'm so excited. Alex, do you think we could take the test? I wanna, I want, can you forward the test to me the next time? I wanna see if I can pass. Guest: If you had to do it cold, you wouldn't do it. Amy: I wouldn't, no, that's yeah. Alex, you might have a question, but I wanna kind of just, I wanna interject really quickly. Do you know what people's h CCC scores are when you are selling them a product? Meaning, do you know what their risk profile looks like when you're selling them a product? For Guest: ma, no idea. No, no idea. No. So, Alex: so Matt, are the, are the FMO that you mentioned, are they the ones who are actually negotiating the commission rates and then you just sign up with the fmo? Because I can't imagine all these different brokers are negotiating like brokerage commissions independently, one by Guest: [00:17:00] one. So the, the street level commissions that that you, we kind of start with, they're all standardized actually. C m s says, this is the, the initial commission level for this year, and this is the renewal level this year. And it doesn't matter which carrier that is, the number. And a and a carrier can't say, well, we're gonna pay you more. In fact, they're very restricted if they, they can't You know, in the insurance world in general, there's of course it's big deal and there's trips and contests and stuff like that. In the Medicare Advantage world, there is none of that because if they, you know, they pay you the street level and then, oh, by the way, we're gonna have a, an awards banquet, and the value of that is another a hundred dollars. They'll get in trouble. So there, there's no other spiffs [00:18:00] per se, from the, the insurance carrier to sell or to incentivize you to sell more products. That's not the case with Medicare supplement plans. It's not the case with all kinds of other insurance products. But for Medicare Advantage plans and Part D drug plans, very, very regulated. Very regulated. Got it. So let's say, Alex: let's say I am 65 and I, and I'm interested in some in signing up for an MA plan, and you are my broker and you show me a United Healthcare Plan and an Aetna plan and a Humana plan, and I choose one of those. What actually happens next mechanically? Like is there an online form you fill out? Like how do they know that this referral came from you and how do the dollars get to you, the commission dollars? Guest: So all applications, whether they're paper or electronic, and that's the way they've almost all gone at this point. And we had electronic applications before Covid, [00:19:00] but bef, but Covid really drove that process a absolutely. But whether it's a paper application or an electronic application, they're all gonna have a line that has your broker information, so your name and your broker ID number, and so that when it gets to that insurance carrier, they know who to credit that commission to. Got it. But you have to Alex: previously, like you, you have to previously Guest: somehow be in Alex: the network of that plan. You can't just start selling a plan that you haven't like taken the certification for and all of that. Right, Guest: right. They won't even, they won't even provide you sales material unless you've done all of that process first. That's so interesting cause wow, Alex: that's weird for me because there's a lot of big plans, right? All the big players, the Uniteds and the Humana of the world. But I aren't there a ton of Guest: smaller ones too. I, you know, I don't know. Na, there are a [00:20:00] lot of plans and, and each, each zip code is specific to what plans are available. It's not even always necessarily Yeah. You know, by state, well, for sure it's not by state. You might have different parts of the state that have 30 advantage plans, and some might have two or zero depending on the population and the medical resources and cost of care in certain areas. So that can, that can definitely be different, even as a broker. I'm licensed in about five states, but if I had someone call me who maybe I, you know, this has happened a bunch of times. I've got a client and now they're moving to Georgia or some other place, and Matt, we're moving. What do we need to do? Well, we gotta change your advantage plan and how much is it gonna be? You know, there's resources I can tap in. To like medicare.gov and see what's available. But if [00:21:00] I were to go back to UnitedHealthcare and try to get marketing materials for that area, and if I'm not licensed in that state, they, they won't even release marketing materials to me unless I'm licensed certified in that state. So Alex: let's say that you are my broker. I'm talking to you, and there's potentially five MA plans in my geography that I could qualify for, but you are only certified with, let's say two of them. Are you under some sort of obligation to notify me that there's these other plans? That you don't earn a commission on, but I need, like, I like what are the rules around, like how much you push the ones that you are certified with versus the ones Guest: you're not? Yeah, I love that question. You know, I've been doing, I've been around this a long, long time, whether it's, you know, as a independent broker or working on the carrier side I would say I'm, I'm sorry, this is a little [00:22:00] bit longer answer to your question. Sure. Important answer. So, my experience dealing in the agent community is that there are very few agents that are going to get licensed and certified for every product in their market. We tend to be a, a lazy breed. You know, if I can get away with selling new products. And not have to certify with a dozen, I'm going to, I'm going to sell two products. Right. And, and if you're licensed, you know, in a state that has 30 products, I don't know how those guys do it. If they really do license with All 30 Pro, I can't imagine that they would. So they have to choose probably which carrier they liked the best. That that overall fits more people, and I'm gonna speak to what we do in, in our market, we are licensed with every single [00:23:00] MA product. So when I meet with people and as we have. Started the process of educating Medicare supplements. Here's what they do and are, and what their costs are. Medicare Advantage plans. Here's what they are here, what's their cost? Here's your risk. And which path do we end up going down if it's the path of an advantage plan. By the way, my clients are about 50 50. That is Amy: also, that was one of my questions. Thank you for answering Guest: that. That is not normal. I'm telling you that is not normal. Most agents are gonna pick either advantage plans or supplement plans. There's not very many that kind of cross breed the two all the time. So I'm just, I'm not normal. Sorry, I'm not normal. But so our, me neither. It's okay. I'm not normal either. That's fine. Our, our path. When, when they, when all is kind of said and done, when they decide, oh, I think I want an advantage plan. If we're face to face there's not, we don't have a [00:24:00] disclosure that says, oh, by the way, we're not licensed with everybody. And so I'm, where I start with people, if they're wanna go down that path, is I wanna know who their doctors are, which hospital networks do they wanna have. We're gonna start there and start narrowing choices. I wanna know their full list of medications. I wanna know who their dentist is. And we're gonna start narrowing down from, you know, 20 different plans down to maybe two or three that are gonna work. That's. That's my process now. We're, we're doing more and more telephonic applications and certainly there are call centers all over the country. That is a hundred percent. Telephonic phone calls and appointments. This past year. Medicare has, besides what they call the scope of appointment form that we have to get signed just to have permission to [00:25:00] talk about Medicare. We also have to record all telephonics. Either phone or Zoom appointments. So we have to record everything now, and we now have to read the following statement that essentially says, we are not licensed with every product in your area. If you want more information, call 1-800-MEDICARE or one medicare.gov to get all the information that you need. So, That's, sorry that was a long answer to your question, but we do have to, if it's a phone call, even even us, we are contracted with all of the plans. We, if we're on the phone or, or a Zoom, we still have to read that silly even if, if it's not true. Wow. It, it's, it's so crazy. But we still have to read that statement. But I get it. I, because there, the, the vast majority of complaints come from call [00:26:00] centers. For sure, for sure. Yeah. There were about 60,000 complaints to Medicare last year from call centers. Now, think about that. 50,000. Amy: The audience doesn't realize my jaw just dropped. I'm like, what? Guest: That's literally the people that officially. Went through the Medicare process of complaining because they felt, Amy: oh my God, so every one person could easily be Guest: 10 people. Oh, it, it could be a hundred thousand people that were pissed off, but 50 went through the process of probably calling Medicare being on hold for 60 to 90 minutes. And then logging a complaint. So I get it. I get it. Because there are a lot of agents that aren't telling them the whole story. They're not representing all of the products in their market. They're, they're pushing one, probably one, [00:27:00] maybe, maybe two carriers when there might be a dozen in their market. So I get it, I get the rules, but it, it's, it, it hurts. I think it hurts the little guys that are out maybe at kitchen table and doing their best and putting, you know, 30,000 miles a year on their car and driving all over the place. So, Alex: so Matt, when you said that you ask the folks For their list of doctors and their meds. Are there any tech tools that you're using either proprietary tools or offered by the government that help brokers like you say, okay, if these are your doctors and these are your meds, here's what's the best plans that would be like in network that your folks, like your doctor would be in Guest: network with? Yeah. Thank goodness we have some tools because especially when we're searching for drug costs and we've got a list of 15 meds that they're taking, and we're trying to compare the cost from carrier to carrier to [00:28:00] carrier, and then flipping back and forth between, okay, here's what it was with the best advantage plan for you. Now let's. Look at on a supplement with a separate drug plan. You know, we have those tools. It takes a while to input 'em and, but the, the tools are great and so they, they definitely help us. There are some tools also that we can type in their doctors and then it will search for them throughout all of the carriers. I, if, if the tool has all of the carriers contract and then some of the carriers. Have made decisions, I guess, financially not to participate with certain tools like Connector or Search and Save and some of those other ones. So I, I generally, when it comes to actually just looking at their doctors, if we're kind of to that point, I'm gonna go directly to the carrier at that point and not use the tool and just drill down with the carry. School Alex: you just go on the carrier's Guest: website. Then I do. When it comes to [00:29:00] doctors and looking up their dentists and that kind of stuff, I, I'm, I'm just gonna, and maybe I'm old school, but I'm gonna go right to the carrier side. Just to make sure. Alex: You mentioned that there's a kind of larger upfront broker commission I've read. It's. I don't know, several hundred dollars, I dunno. Three, four, $500, something in that range ma plan. But then there's an ongoing one for renewals. So talk to us a little bit about like what are your, what happens after day zero when you sign them up? What sort of ongoing connection or communication do you have with the Guest: member, if any? We certainly do we have a full, we're a full service office. You know, we've got about a dozen back in. Operations folks that help with claims and billing and, you know, all those kinds of things. We, we do newsletters every quarter. We we're very hands-on. Every year as we're approaching the annually election period, we're sending emails and letters. Saying, [00:30:00] Hey, it's that time of year we've reviewed, we've received information. You've already, you know, re they've probably at that point received their annual notice of change from their specific plan. If it's a plan that is, you know, changing a lot. That letter or email to those specific clients on that plan, we may say, you know what, this might be the year that we should probably look at some, some other alternatives because they've changed their network or they, you know, they went from a 5,000 max out of pocket to 7,500 max out of pocket or something, you know, crazy. But a lot of times the advantage plans aren't really changing a lot and so our messaging during, you know, leading up to October one might be, you know, what, we've reviewed it. It's, unless you're unhappy with the plan or you really wanna dig into some other plans, we think it's probably a, a pretty decent plan to stay with this next year. And if so, you don't have to re-enroll, it just will [00:31:00] auto renew. So to answer your question, yes we are. We're very hands-on with our clients. Can you talk to us about like, what are what, what are you Alex: noticing are the key reasons why a member might switch from one MA plan to another or from MA to original Medicare or vice versa? What are the things that are Guest: triggering change? That's a great question and, and in a roundabout way, I get a lot of those questions from clients is number one, can I switch? And then what's, what is that process? So let me, let me answer that and maybe several different phases. So what's interesting is our, our clients, it's a, it's a very small percentage that change. No matter whether they start with an advantage plan or they start with original Medicare with a Medicare supplement plan, very rarely I'm, I'm [00:32:00] betting it's less than single digit percentages of our clients that go, oh, I want the other one now. Okay. And it might be my sister has it and she had open heart surgery and she never paid anything out of pocket and she just can't stop talking about it. I think I want that Medigap plan like she has. So we, we don't get a lot, but for. I think your first question to change from advantage to advantage, it might be because their network changed and, and they don't wanna change their doctor. They, it's, it, they would rather just change the insurance because their doctor's now in another, you know, situation. It might be because they they took away some dental benefits or they heard that such and such company is paying $50 back of their part B you know, kind of a rebate. And, and I heard Joe Namath on the, on the tv and [00:33:00] he's talking about free, free, free, free, free. And we're gonna, we might, we might pay you 146 or a hundred sixty four ninety. Back towards your part B, you know, and they're like, that sounds really good. My plan doesn't do that. What can I do to get on one of those? So you know, I would say this the past couple of years what is driving more than anything? Our clients wanting to look at new plans is all the infomercials and thankfully wow. Thankfully, most of them are calling us, but we lose clients due to those infomercials and they're calling a call center who knows where. And you know, that's just, that's just the competitive nature of our business. So now to switch from From an advantage plan to a supplement plan most of the time. Now, there's some states that have different rules in, in our state to go from an advantage plan to a supplement plan. Typically, [00:34:00] number one, you have to do it during the the open enrollment season or during the, excuse me, the annual election period, which is October 15th and December 7th, and now we also have the open enrollment period from January one to the end of March. That is a window that potentially you can go from advantage to supplement, but it doesn't mean that it's easy. You might have health questions and underwriting, and that company potentially could say yes or no. Some might say yes, but you're a little higher risk, so we're gonna give you a 30%, you know, rate adjustment. But most of them are, the answer's gonna be yes or no. And, and in that window, but outside of those windows, they can't switch. Amy: Right. Let me, let me, let me make sure I understand. Cause I always like to repeat back. And I'm probably gonna botch this one. So I. I think Alex's original question was about churn, was about sort of churn from Medicare Advantage to [00:35:00] Medicare Advantage or MA to original. Original back to ma. So you were saying that there's not a lot of movement or there is a lot of movement. Like would you give a percentage kind of, of people who move within ma? Cause I understand there is a churn factor there year over year. Guest: Yeah, there's definitely a churn factor in the industry as a whole. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. Our clients, I would say there's not a real ch it doesn't, it doesn't help us financially, certainly to. Re to move our clients around like, you know, a Shell game every year. That doesn't help us cuz we're paid the same, whether we move them from one advantage to another that doesn't mean we're not communicating with them. And, and going through that is crazy busy time for us because people wanna review and that's okay. We get it. From an industry standpoint that for a lot of agents, that is [00:36:00] their number one time period to make money because they know that people change. That's why you see people at a booth, that Walmart and their local pharmacy and different places they're hoping to churn. Those people walking in the door and say, Hey, come over here. You look like you might be on Medicare. Are you aware that there are some, there's some changes that you might be missing. Now come sit down and let's talk about things you're probably missing. Now. Let's, let's talk through that. So, The, there are lots. I know for a fact that there are lots of agents out there that their number one way of making money is churning existing client, not sorry, churning someone else's existing client. To their book without a doubt. And that's part of the, the, the lead process I have, I have a friend in the market, he's not, not in Utah, but his [00:37:00] whole, and he's been doing this for 25 years. His whole marketing process is buying leads of people who are about 68 to 75, and he is, You know, trying to resell them a new Medicare supplement plan. That's his, that's his whole deal. That is, that is not, I mean, I, I'm not saying this to say, oh, good for you. Our market is brand new to Medicare, brand new to whether that are a 65 or 70 year old who's retiring. That's our market. Amy: Got it. So you're new entry now. Is there any cost to the consumer to going with a really reputable agent like you? No. Or is there, there, so there is no Guest: cost. Never doesn't, it doesn't matter. It's the, the same product, the same premium, whether they're going directly through the carrier, whether they're going through a call center, whether they're talking to a local agent. It's all the [00:38:00] same there. And an agent cannot charge them money to help them navigate zero. I was Alex: at a Panera recently, and I, I, I was like looking over at the table next to me and it looked like there was a Medicare broker selling an MA plan to an elderly couple. Are, are they allowed to like, I dunno, buy you a sandwich or like what are the rules Guest: around that? Yeah, that's part of those marketing guidelines. You, you can do a sales seminar where you advertise and people could come to the local. Wherever, and you can spend up to $15 you know, in of retail value for something to get somebody in the door, you cannot provide a meal to get them to, you know, listen to you. Once upon a time you could. But that was shut down, I don't know, six, seven years ago. You can it, if you're in the local, you know, cracker Barrel or you [00:39:00] know, Golden draw or something like that. You could provide a, like, it almost, I love Cracker Barrel, Amy: just as a total aside. It's like my, you Guest: know, an appetizer plate that's, that's legit. You know, the guy who is who you saw, I, I, I suspect that he probably. You know, had a lead. He called them and maybe they said, let's just, let's just meet over at Panera and, you know, we'll have coffee and we'll, we'll talk about it. That's, that's pretty normal. You know, there's a lot of agents that go out to people's homes. Sometimes people are a little uncomfortable having some stranger come to the home. So, yeah, let's, let's just meet at, you know, Dunking Donuts and have coffee and, and et cetera. So that's, that's pretty normal. I, I can't imagine that he was in there and thought, oh, They have gray hair. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna ask them if they're on Medicare. No, I doubt, I doubt that. So, Alex: yeah, so, so Matt, I was recently working at Optum and [00:40:00] just like any other risk bearing entity, they, they on some. Members, they're gonna make money and on some members they're gonna lose money. Right. Cuz some members have really high complex medical issues that are not sufficiently covered by the payment that they get from, from, from c m s. Yep. So is there a filtering process? Like if somebody wants this MA plan versus that one, can the ma plan de deny them? No. So Guest: there's Amy: no underwriting in ma, there's Guest: no underwriting at, at one time in the, most of the MA products rolled out kind of in a new and improved process in about this time in 2005, for the first probably six or seven years, they had one question, and that was, do you have end stage renal disease? Yeah. That was, that was the qualifier that they've done away with that. So so without that, do you have Medicare and do you live [00:41:00] within the service area? That's it. That, that's it. Now there are there's a health re or health risk assessment or h r a that a lot of the insurance carriers incentivize agents to fill out a. That maybe a 40 question health risk assessment, but that's after the sale. It is not a qualifier. It's, it's can go, it'll go back to the carrier and, and the carrier u utilizes that to provide data to, to cms and that based on the risk that they're getting as a whole, they get more money. They get more money, but not, not a qualifier to sign up. Okay. I Alex: know we're starting to run outta time, so are what, what, if anything, did we miss and where can folks find you and, and tell us your company name and, and domain again. Guest: Yeah. Go to 90 days from retirement.com [00:42:00] and we have lots and lots. You, you don't have to log in, you don't have to provide any data to, to. You know, our average time that someone's on our site's, like 30 minutes, it's, it's crazy. We have written, we have YouTube topics I think we, our marketing guys kind of hit it out of the park when it covers every topic you can possibly imagine. And then if they're, if they do want help, You know, essentially they can hit the easy button, so to speak and say, yeah reach out to me. Here's my contact info. And we can, we can help them. So, Wow. Love Alex: it. I, I, I love the education approach to all of this. There is so much to learn, there's so much confusion. And that's what Amy and I strive to do too, right? Is just Amy: Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm actually, I'm just sitting here completely blown away. I always like to kind of reflect for a second. I mean, we're just like two dumb doctors that are like, Hey, let's figure out how we are gonna make money from. Being doctors and like how does the money flow from like an [00:43:00] insurance company perspective or the Feds down to us? Understanding how people get into the system to even make that happen is absolutely fascinating and requires sort of an overlapping Venn diagram of very similar information. I, I'm blown away. I'm blown away. And I really wanna thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Guest: Yeah, my pleasure. I hope, I hope that helped. Yeah, I hope it was worth your time. Amazing. So Alex: Matt Gibson, thank you so much. From 90 days from retirement.com. And everybody, please make sure to visit our new newsletter, aging here.com, and you can reach out to us@masteringmedicare.net or info@aginghere.com. Thank you so much. Great. Thanks Amy: so much.