 you know what are the what are the gaps there and I'm just going to go ahead I'm going to share my screen here I want to first and foremost just introduce myself my name is Tom Kilkenny I've been a wealth manager for about 28 years about two and a half years ago I decided to plump the brakes and stop working with some of the demanding clients and I have the great opportunity to work with some really wonderful librarians like Doreen at the San Francisco Public Library and provide patrons like yourself a really great resource in regards to not only financial literacy financial tools but even our insurance tools as well so with that being said I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to share my screen with you okay so first and foremost what I'd like to do is I'd just like to point out we're going to have a Q&A I'm going to go through the entire presentation and at the end you know we'll leave it open for you know Q&A for you know 10 to 20 minutes however long it takes to try to answer as many questions as possible if I don't have the answers to your questions my promise to you is I will get the right answer for you and I will report that back to Doreen so that you get those questions answered for you so this is a Medicare supplement insurance and how to pick the right plan and get the best rate we'll share a few Medigap secrets that might save you a bunch of money too Medigap pricing tool and insurance ratings it's brought to you by Weiss financial ratings and Greyhouse Publishing we're independent unbiased and accurate and that's what we strive for Weiss financial ratings is not owned by any subsidiary there are no conflicts of interest so that is where you get the true independent unbiased and we get the most accurate information as possible you'll see at the end we'll give you some pricing and I'm sure Doreen will certainly go over the pricing tool with you at the very end as well and you'll see based upon whether you're a preferred standard or a substandard rating even when you call the insurance company which we also provide the numbers for you here as long as you hit that standard level and you look at the standard quote the chances are you're probably going to be within a dollar or two so it's uh it's very accurate the Medicare and Medigap discussion is designed to help navigate through the Medicare makes a primary goal is to tell you Tom it looks like your your slides are not advancing it we're viewing slide number nine um and I don't know if you're you're back a few slides so no I'm I can see that you're sharing your screen so yes but but you're not seeing the actual slide it's not advancing yeah I can hear you clicking your keyboard but we're stuck on slide number nine all right we're not anywhere near slide number nine and I apologize for that sorry to interrupt no that's okay I mean the most important thing is is to give you exactly let's see can it does it say Medigap pricing tool and insurance ratings yes yes now now we can see it all right thank you I apologize there's three that are up there so the Medicare and Medigap discussion is designed to help you navigate through the Medicare maze a primary goal is to tell you about choices that you have available to you and help you save as much money as possible at the end of the talk you'll be able to download your own customizable Medigap report that can help you find and select the best Medicare supplement insurance policy for you and with the strongest companies for the least amount of money and you can do it for free with your San Francisco public library card here's what we'll cover major expenses Medicare does not cover when is open enrollment and what does that mean to you why Medigap can be better than Medicare Advantage how to get lower premiums and save hundreds even thousands of dollars when can you join Medicare typically it's seven month initial enrollment period it starts three months before your 65th birthday the month of your 65th birthday or three months after your 65th birthday the open enrollment period is October 15th to December 7th still working and covered by insurance Medicare can supplement your employer coverage as well that's a note that you may want to also know that these slides will also be provided and available to you through the San Francisco public library so if there's something that you've missed you'll certainly have access to these slides after the presentation when can you change your plan or your insurer if you have Medigap plan now you want to change your plan or your insurer you can do so during the open enrollment period each year October 15th to December 7th your coverage will start January 1st understanding Medicare coverage you have Medicare Part A which is your hospital insurance you have Medicare Part B which is your medical insurance you have your Medicare Part C which is the Medicare Advantage plan and then you have your Medicare Part D which is the prescription drug coverage Medicare Part A covers hospital related services and emergency care that includes inpatient hospitalization home health services skilled nursing services hospice Medicare Part A does not cover all of your hospital costs and it does not cover long-term care Medicare Part B it covers your regular medical care and helps with outpatient services that includes doctor office visits laboratory services ambulance and diagnostic services so you might think you're totally covered when it comes to Medicare Medicare does not cover all of the costs associated with hospital and medical insurance and it does not include prescription drug coverage Medicare out-of-pocket costs for 2022 so Part A the hospital deductible Medicare will not kick in until after the first $1,556 is paid and that stays one through 60 now the Part A hospitalization day 61 through 90 the benefits do not kick in until after the first $389 is covered by the patient and then Medicare takes care of the rest on the Part A hospitalization days 91 through 150 they'll cover anything over the first $778 so it's a lot of money so it's really important that if we're going to spend any amount of time in a hospital that we understand what it is we're going to be responsible for and what Medicare will actually kick in and pay afterwards the Part B annual deductible is $233 a year the Part B monthly premium in Medicare is $170.10 again it depends on your income it's income adjusted so most outpatient services and medical supplies are 20% of the total amount that Medicare approves skilled nursing facility care days 21 through 100 are $185.50 per day and skilled nursing facility care after 100 days that'll cover the at 100% so there's a lot of expenses that you'll have to pay with Medicare if you need to spend any sort of significant time in a hospital other hidden costs of Medicare and none of these are covered prescription drugs, vision, emergency care abroad if any of you decide that you might travel to different countries throughout your retirement dental insurance and hearing aids those are five areas that Medicare does not cover you have choices and individual needs will vary when Medicare was established in 1967 it was never meant to cover all of your medical care for your senior years it was intended to cover only the most basic of needs you have choices in regards to your healthcare you can stick with a Medicare Part A and Part B or you can purchase additional coverage you can make this decision based on your unique healthcare needs there are two choices to fill a gap the first is the Medicare Advantage Part C and the second is the Medicare Supplemental Insurance Medicare that will also talk in depth today Medicare Advantage Part C coverage is provided by a private insurance and is limited to a defined network of doctors and providers it combines Part A hospital insurance Part B medical care and oftentimes Part D prescription drugs Medicare Supplement Insurance which we deemed Medigap covers deductibles copayments and co-insurance it's designed to fill in the gaps that Medicare Part A and Part B does not cover Medigap versus Medicare Advantage original Medicare and Medicare Supplement typical higher premiums but no copays you have the freedom to choose your doctors no referrals are necessary some routine services are not covered like vision and here those are not covered for the most part in the Medigap Supplemental Insurance and you're covered anywhere in the U.S. and six plans or for coverage abroad if you decide that you do extensive traveling overseas the Medicare Advantage Plan generally lower premiums but it does have copays it may be restricted to a network of doctors you may need referrals for specialists and it may include the extra benefits like vision hearing and fitness outside of your service area you're limited to emergency services only secret number one Medigap plans offer identical coverage 10 Medigap Plans there are currently 10 Medigap Plans each known by a letter A to N and two plans F and G each have an additional high deductible option the every letter plan every insurer that offers the plan provides the same exact benefit the plans are actually regulated by the government so the coverage within each letter plan is the same regardless of whichever insurer you choose that means all plan A's have the same exact coverages all plan B's are the same all plan F's are the same and all plan G's are the same etc etc etc you can pick the plan that has the coverage that you want you can compare one insurer to another and you can pick the plan that has the best rate questions to ask yourself when picking a Medigap plan what is your income using a customized Medigap report you can shop for a Medigap plan that has the most benefits that will fit within your budget do you think you'll want or need nursing care look at your family's medical history if your parents and grandparents needed nursing care you may want it may also need similar care in the future do you travel a lot overseas if so you can get the coverage for emergency care in foreign countries with plan C through plan G MNN deciding between Medigap plans paying a higher premium for more comprehensive coverage or pay less for your premium and potentially pay a little more out of pocket here's some scenarios here on what's covered plans through A through N as you can see uh plan F and plan G are the most comprehensive that's where you see the most red check-off marks in regards to the services that are provided but they typically also come with the highest premium as well but again it's the most comprehensive coverage I always use this as a precursor unfortunately you know my mom passed away last year to cardiovascular disease and this past summer my father had a little piece of melanoma removed from his forehead so for me and my family medical history um I'm over two so I really probably need to get a more comprehensive plan when I hit the age of 65 because my family medical history is not the strongest again you'll see that in a plan A as we go on the coverages are all the same regardless of the insurance company that you select and that's government mandated so you'll see here the least expensive premium age 65 year old female in san francisco plan A is 1109 plan B is 1828 plan C is 2030 plan D 1463 now plan F is no longer available if you are if you don't currently have plan F plan F was discontinued and you need to be grandfathered into plan F the alternative to the plan F is the plan G and the plan G is $1416 but as you could see the services and coverages are exactly the same secret number two medigat plans are standard but the rates are not so again when we talked about the services being provided uh equally in plan A plan B plan C or plan F or plan G um it doesn't matter what insurance company you do business with the services are the same across the board the one thing that government has not been able to mandate is the money insurance premiums can vary thousands of dollars a year for the exact same coverage a female age 65 living in san francisco california plan G's highest premium is $2,785 plan G's lowest premium as we saw on the graph prior is $1,416 that's a savings of $1,369 now a male age 68 living in san francisco california the plan A highest premium is $3,097 and the plan A lowest premium is $1,109 it's a savings of $1,988 now another thing that i'd like to point out that's not on this uh powerpoint presentation as your average individual lives using supplemental um medicap insurance 10 years now if everything stayed stagnant we're talking about a savings of almost $20,000 in your retirement years for 10 years that's the price of a small compact car brand now a couple age 65 and 68 living in san francisco california plan G highest premium is $7,974 plan G's lowest premium is $2,400 this is a couple that's ready to say $5,574 now if this couple lives like 10 years and using the supplemental insurance you're talking about a savings of almost $55,000 it's a lot of money how safe is your insurer not all insurance companies are created equal why safety ratings A is considered excellent B is considered good C is fair and D is weak E is very weak secret number three safer insurers are not necessarily the most expensive higher premiums don't mean you're going to get coverage from a stronger more financial stable insurance provider you're going to see on some of these rates that some of the most prominent insurance companies actually are a lot cheaper than some of the more obscure insurance companies and especially companies that don't come with the strongest safety ratings secret number four is you can make the choice more coverage for less reduce your premium balance the financial safety of your insurer with your choice of the plan and the four secrets and we'll rule with them again medigap plans offer identical coverage medigap plans are standard but the rates are not safer insurers are not necessarily more expensive that's factual and you can make the choice vice financial ratings medigap report helps you make the right choice for you in your specific situation you can pick the right coverage you can pick the lowest rate you can save valuable time and money and you can pick the best and most affordable plan from all available providers customized just for you and you get it all for free with your library card because library subscribers uh subscribes to this helpful tool and that's the san francisco public library system they will for this for their patrons for free some common questions eligibility for plan c and f if you are eligible for medicare after january 1st 2020 plan c and plan f and high deductible plan f will not be available to you and riot may mention which have to be grandfathered if you are eligible for medicare before january 1st 2020 you can continue to enroll and plan c and plan f and high deductible plan consider plan b instead of plan c while plan g instead of plan f the only difference is your $233 part b deductible that's okay and that's also another reason if you take a look plan f is a little more expensive than plan g it almost evens itself out the solution offered by rice ratings customized medicare reporters to help you find and select the best medicare policy for you with the strongest companies for the least of amount of money naturally every person's situation is new unique so if you have more questions we urge you run first and foremost talk to your doctor about your future health care needs and make sure that the plan that you are selecting will give you the coverage that you need to talk to the insurance company that you've selected make sure your specific questions are all answered and number three you can also talk to a ship and those are the state health insurance assistance program counselors that many libraries bring in to get personalized one-on-one medicare counseling over the phone or even in person to help you further you can load it locate a ship counselor in your area by visiting the website which we have listed in the link there below which is the ship tacenter.org and click and or find the local medicare help how to get your own medicare for go to san francisco public library website which is sfpl.org click on the research and learning button select all databases click the w section that's going to bring you to rice financial ratings enter your library card and pin if you're connecting from home click on the medicare tab that's the gray bar on the right hand side simply enter your information and download your report so i'm going to turn it over to doreen i'm going to ask some questions in a few moments but one of the things that i did want to bring to your attention is once you go in there we don't collect your information for any reason and you'll see that the little disclaimer at the bottom you can simply go ahead and you can put your initials in and if you don't want to receive a copy of the report and i do have to say that function at this point in time has not been working properly over the last week and i don't have an eta on that however you can still pull up the report and view the report but the three most important things that you must put in is one you need to put your age in there because obviously the older we get the more brittle we get and there you know we need more medical services as we get a little older so the premiums are typically a little higher the second is gender it's very important for us gentlemen the ladies you make out there's females typically live longer than males and most of the time they're more financially fit than we are so they pay lower premiums and obviously normally with a lot of the libraries that i speak to i always say that the the fees that doctors charge in the metropolitan new york area are a lot different than theirs but here in san francisco so we're probably right on par with one another with what the physicians are charging us so that's all going to dictate what type of premium that we're going to pay now what i'd like to do is i'd like to turn it over to doreen and and i know that there's there's a bunch of questions there and i have a tough time reading them so doreen maybe wants to read some of those that would be fantastic and i'll try to answer the most of them to the best of my ability okay um so i think i'll start by quickly doing a little demo and um and then we'll go to the questions so let me just um let's see here so i'm just going to open up a browser window here and this is such a great easy tool to use it should take you no more than 30 seconds to pull up your own personalized report i highly urge all of yous at some point today to go ahead and and pull up your own report and take a look okay and someone did ask in the chat about the pathway so i'll i'll go over that right now and i'll include it in the follow-up email too so here i am at the library's homepage sfpl.org and then i click on research and learn and then articles and databases and then we have this a to z list and i'm going to click w take us straight to all the the databases that start with w otherwise you'll be scrolling through that list all day so this is the quick way to get there so there's vice ratings look on that and it's prompting me for library card number so this is a um this is our department's account that in really quick all right so this is what it looks like and it's really easy to get the report you click on metagap which is the upper right hand corner and then i'm going to put in um a minimum age is sorry what don't give away your age during this is not my real age that's the lowest age you can put a 65 um okay and zip code i'm putting the zip code of the main library so that's uh civic center san francisco so it's got my age it's got my gender it's got my zip code and those are the three bits of information they really need then you click get report takes a minute or two now remember it's it's compiling all of the insurance companies that are available in your zip code and it's actually pulling exact uh quotations uh for those particular insurance companies not only on the annual premiums but many of them show the monthly premiums as well yeah and it's substantial i mean i did it yesterday and it was almost 60 pages so there we go so um for now disregard that just because they're fixing that function but we're going to view the report which is going to be a pdf format you can download it print it email it to yourself save it on your computer and look at that uh so it's this is a report for a 65 year old female in san francisco in this zip code and you can see on the left hand side of my screen this is a 58 page report and if we just click into some of this i mean you can see all the different companies it's comparing so if dorian would you mind if if i took over for just a moment sure go ahead okay so what i want to do is i click right on here well oh yeah tell me what to click on i'll get there okay so right i'm circling it right next to the uh the table of content to the left okay so yeah so go all the way to the left uh nope to the left there's a little box yep underneath there that little uh table of content click on that and then click on the uh the arrow to the medigap report and then click on each arrow to open all of those up okay and so here uh you can pretty much open up the report so scroll up and you can click on what is medicare cover right underneath there there you go and if you scroll down from there um you know if you go on to the actual report itself and scroll down the report oh yep there you go it's just scroll down you can use your mouse and that gives you pretty much everything of every service and what medicare actually covers what we're responsible to cover what are some of the gaps and it gets pretty uh inclusive even to um you know some obscures like uh abdominal aortic aneurysm screening i mean it really goes over in detail a lot of different screenings um and it it lets you know exactly what you're responsible for and what medicare will actually take care of now for me i know i had made mention i'm not a 65 year old female but i had made mention that my past medical history my past family medical history has not been very strong so because i would be enrolling after january first 2020 and i wanted the most comprehensive coverage i would probably go with a plan g so if doreen goes over to the table of content and clicks on plan g and then goes back over to the report and scrolls down now right there all now right off the bat you know one company that stands out usa a life insurance company it's a safety rating of a 1510 dollars and it's got a monthly premium of just 123 dollars now i don't know if anybody remembers back in the day in the 70s and 80s we had all the game shows that that came on and we had you know tom sellick selling the reverse mortgages and pat sage act was selling the colonial pen supplemental health insurance um so right off the bat you know people are watching tv they're jotting down the numbers and they're going ahead and if we scroll down and we want to look for the colonial pen okay uh keep going one more page one more page but there it is right there colonial pen standard is at d minus and that's 2226 dollars and 191 dollars so that's almost a thousand dollar savings right there and and really almost 80 dollars on a monthly savings i mean that's a utility bill for many of our seniors um and that just really goes to show that you know you think you're online and you're watching tv and they're they're pitching you a great company it's not like the colonial pen life insurance company it's a bad company but obviously we see that their safety rating is a d plus and yet we can go ahead and get an a rated safety rated company the lights of us a and and pay a fraction of what that is and us a as you can see isn't even at the top of the list there you know you have a blue shield of california which is 1416 118 dollars a month so again you really have a great opportunity to go in on an annual basis to the san francisco public library system go through rice financial readings because you never know um next year us a may go up 10 percent and you may want to shop for a different provider you may go in and you may find out that maybe blue shield of california is less expensive maybe they didn't raise the rates oh hold on i've got a lot of questions uh no us a is not limited to militaries and their families if uh if you live in a community um you can certainly do business with us a should we um go look at the chat questions are you ready yeah let's go ahead and i think at that point we might want to uh pause the the tape the recording okay nobody we don't want anybody's personal information out there for the rest of san francisco to hear okay so let me just first i'm gonna stop the share and then