Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.
Welcome to Reyna Retirement. Reyna Reyes has dedicated her career to helping people make small, smarter financial decisions. Raina Retirement is all about breaking down complex financial concepts into language you can actually understand.
Now here's the co founder of American Federal Benefits Consultants, Reyna Reyes.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Well, we're coming up to the end of the year and as always, is aep, that is annual enrollment for Medicare. And every time fall comes around, we all start hearing the Christmas music on the radio.
And one of the best Christmas songs that me, my sister totally memorized every word to was Grandma got run over by a reindeer. So we're always singing it, Grandma got run over by a reindeer walking home from our house Christmas Eve. And I'm telling you, my contention is that if grandma had the proper Medicare Advantage plan or the proper supplement or the proper health insurance, maybe they would have been able to have another Christmas with her. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe there was just not the proper emergency care out there in the woods when she was walking home. Maybe it was the Christmas pudding, I don't know. Or she was drinking too much eggnog. That's what it was. She was drinking too much eggnog. We begged her not to go, but she forgot her medication and then she hobbled out the door into the snow. So I'm telling you, you've got to have the right coverage so you don't end up like Grandma that day. And it's the end of the year. Open enrollment always happens. It's time to to pick your plan. It's time to look around, periscope up from what you've been doing in retirement and check on the other plans available. Check the pulse of the plans. The plan pulse.
Oh, there's a lot of p words I could think of for that one. Check the plan polls of your place people.
And how do you do that? Well, you connect with somebody like me. We got quite a few people on our team that are Medicare specialists since golly old long time ago.
And we can help you look because there's no two plans that are the same. Remember, they have to like Medicare Advantage plans, for example. They have to be as good as Medicare and then, you know, as a standard and then they add different benefits. They add the additional stuff. You've got the silver sneakers, I got a guy calls the silver slippers. That's like my favorite ever. But you've got some of the extra plans. Some of them have the over the counter benefits, some of them save you money off of Medicare costs. Some of them have prescription drugs, some of them don't. Some of them are used heavily by military members primarily because they don't really use their civilian health care. But they want, they've got to have Medicare B. And remember, Med Advantage plans even are playing ball with Tricare now. So you can kind of do both. Med supplements, obviously that's another cost. It doesn't come with drug plans. You've got some things to consider there. A lot of my Fed employees might not lean toward a supplement just because it's another cost in addition to what you already have.
Either way, these are, this is all this stuff spraying out all over the place. It's a bunch of bird shop and it's never gonna stop. I'm telling you, your mailbox is going to be like, with all this Medicare stuff happening, prepare yourself. It's not going to end. You're going to have every single year, your mailbox will probably make eye contact with you. October 15th, every year it's going to be like, dude, are you serious? It's going to happen again. Can you please check me every day so I don't overflow? It's like, like a farmer has to milk the cow every day or like they're sad and they get like full right with milk. So same with your, your mailbox, it's going to get full with mail and it's going to look at you and be like, you better get this stuff out of me because I'm going to be super full tomorrow. We're talking the postcards, the big huge M jam glossy things. You're going to get trifolds, you're going to get stuff that looks very official, looks very government. You're like, what is this? I better open it up. And it's a zero premium. You're like, get off me. So this is the year that it's happening, what's happening every year. But I'm saying this is the time that you want to start looking that way. By the time the 50th person has mailed you something or by the time you've spoken with the 50th person to show you some different version of the same thing you looked at, you might want to look yourself. You can do the Medicare.gov searches. You can call somebody like us you can just throw a rock and see which mailer you hit. Either way you want to start looking. That's not the best way to search you guys. But a lot of people will search by their doctors. Maybe they have a non negotiable doctor that they've got to see. You know, you go through your list of people, you're like, I've got to stay with my cardiologist, I don't care about my primary and I just changed podiatrists, whatever, or it's I just moved here, I don't care. I need to get established. Quick recommendation from Raina if you're going to kick off with a brand new doctor. I'm a fan of an internist. Why they can do more before they send you off to a specialist. Because if you see a, you know, general practice person, they're great, they're fine. But the second you have a potential elevated protein in your urine, or you have an irregular heartbeat, or they see something on your skin that's not whatever, they have to send you straight away to the specialists. But many internists have a specialty attached to their repertoire and they can take you further before sending you to the specialist. For example, some internists or endocrinologists, I worked with one in Pensacola, she was great. So all of the people that dealt with diabetes, bam. We would recommend her because she can do so much more for them before booting them over to the true an endocrinologist as a specialist. Same thing. A lot of my seniors, they want a geriatric internist because they can do so much more with the common aches and pains and issues of a senior citizen because there are common things that happen at certain age milestones.
So things like that you may want to consider. Some people, like I said, love their certain doctors and they won't change, no way, no how. So they search based on network. Some people have a brand name medicine that they have to stay with because I tried Simvastatin and it had all kinds of horrible things. I have to go use Crestor doctor's orders. And so they try to find a plan with a formulary or a drug plan that has that prescription for the lowest cost.
So there's a lot of things that go into picking your kind of plan.
And remember every year open enrollment has happens so you can make changes at the end of the year, but once you're in it in general, you're stuck with it for the year. So you want to. And that's advantage plans, but supplements as well to a point. In drug plans. Now, a lot of my federal employees, when you retire, that is the time to talk. If you're Medicare eligible. Because when you retire, open enrollment is sort of very secondary to you. Yeah, it's a thing. It'll be a thing after.
But your original retirement time period, you've got this eight month window post retirement that you can turn on Medicare Part B and have no penalty.
Postal employees, remember, you got to turn it on. If you were not 64 or older, 1-1-25, you got to do it. Which means your spouse got to do it. You both have to. And that's a big thing because it's another what cost.
It's more money. It's, it's everywhere you turn. Your greenbacks are going out the door and you want to make a plan for it. Because there's not only one way. People like, what's the best way? Well, you can't use the word best in healthcare. We're like banned from it. You can't help best. Nope. Best is relative, my friend. Best is relative. It all depends. There's all these factors. So you want to think about what you care about. I would have your presuppositions made when you schedule your meeting with me, my team, or who the heck ever you're going to talk to, know kind of what you're looking for. Just like when you're shopping for a car. I want four doors. I want leather seats.
I want an automatic transition. Transition. I want that transition to be automatic as well as my transmission. But you've got to know what you want, at least on a basis. So if it's four doors, maybe, you know, you've got to have your primary doctor in there. If it's leather seats, maybe, you know, you've got to have a certain hospital in your network if you need pet insurance. Reuben, Stop.
My dog's name is Reuben. We are all ours in our family, even the dogs. We have Reuben and Rosie and there is somebody at the door and I need to know about it. But it's probably somebody pitching me a Medicare plan because I have helped people enroll. So I actually get mail for some of my people because I've done it in my. Okay, let me handle this. So that way you don't get all this stuff. So I get stuff from my mom, aarp, you can, you're going to get all the mail, all the mail, pick the names, whatever.
So all I'm telling you, take a look at next year. Take a look at what you want. Get your skeletal preferences ready and Then reach out to somebody like me or my team if you need me. My number is 850-450-6500. Text is the fastest way to get a hold of me. I will usually respond with a text with a calendar based on what you need. So if you say to me hey Raina, my name is John Doe, I'm 67, I'm about to retire, I need Medicare help.
Great. I'll probably not connect you with directly with our Medicare because you haven't retired yet. So I'll send you with a specialist to prep your retirement and then they will kick you over to the Medicare division.
So we try to have some specialties. This is not like one hand doesn't know what the other one's doing. But there are some people that just don't deal with Medicare at all. Some people that prefer to deal with Medicare more than the retirement planning. That's how it works. You know how that works? Adam Smith's Division of Labor. So we, we kind of subscribe to that here just to have people be specialists, second to none.
So there's your Medicare update for today. Check your mail on the regular, pick what you want for next year at least your own non negotiables and find somebody to direct you properly. Good luck, we'll talk to you soon.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Reyna Retirement. With a strong commitment to ethical standards, Reyna works hard to find the right solution for each individual or or family who reaches out for advice. To contact Reyna directly, call 850-450-6500. That's 850, 456,500. Or to reach the team at American Federal Benefits Consultants, call 1-800-872-8857. That's 1-800-872- 8857. You can also go online to AmericanFederal.org not affiliated with the United States Government. Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. These opinions are not intended as investment advice nor do they predict future performance of any product. All information provided is believed to be from reliable sources. However, we make no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of any statement. The information is intended to be educational in nature and does not provide a guarantee or specific result. All copyrights and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. American Federal Benefits Consultants is an independent organization, not a government agency or affiliated with the federal government or any state government. The terms CSRS, FERS, FEGLI and FEHB are all registered trademarks of the U.S. office of Personnel Management. American Federal Benefits consultants, agents, consultants, or any independent contractors. Do not provide tax, legal or investment advice and do not engage in the solicitation or sale of securities. Consult with your tax advisor or attorney regarding specific situations.
