grow older better

Tag: Medicare

  • Mail like this makes me ANGRY

    Today I got this in the mail.

    a bit misleading

    The most noticeable feature of the envelope is the black and white pattern – along with the  ALL CAPS WORDS TELLING ME HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS – AND THAT. IT. IS. RELATED.TO. MEDICARE!!

    Only if you turn the envelope over and read the much smaller print that says " This is an advertisement" do you know it’s not really from the Social Security Adminsitration – why?

    Because below is what an offical envelope from Social Security looks like.

    official envelope from Social Security

    Hmmm… Legal?  Yes.  Misleading?  To many – also a yes!   And of course the leter inside lets you know that you can call for FREE INFORMATION  [also all caps]  and that if you give them your phone number you are giving them permission to have a sales representative call you.

    If you or anyone you know are Medicare eligible – PLEASE warn them about these letters.

  • Open Season for Medicare and the 1st one turned me off already!

    It’s that time of year again!  Open Season for Seniors!  Or is it Open Season ON Seniors?  

    [I was going to say "pissed me off" in the title but thought that would turn some of you off so I put that in in another way – so glad I use Thesis]

    Open season, starting on Nov. 15th, is when you can change your Medicare Advantage Plans – but the mail starts flowing now!

    Mailboxes get stuffed regularly – which is good for the Postal Service I guess.  But it is also a time of year that Medicare recipients are targeted by less-than-scrupulous persons and vendors.

    And even from the scrupulous [I think] – one gets come-ons like "meet with us and get a free calendar!"  A free calendar?  The kind one gets for free from so many businesses for doing nothing?  Wow – sign me up – not!

    I value my time and if you want me to look at your options make it easy; online or by being informative in your mailings.  And make your online information more comprehensive than the ad you mail.  I for one do not wish to meet with any sales person or give you information when your disclaimer lets me know I am "authorizing" you to contact me!  

    Maybe I am "allowing" you to contact me.  But authorize?  No way.  That means a sales person will call and call and call.  I get enough of those calls as is which is why I love Caller ID and the ringer shut off .

    And please don’t belittle my intelligence and devalue my time by offering me a damned calendar in exchange for meeting with you!!

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The free food come on

    Some Medigap providers invite you to a meal – a FREE meal! Why? Because few turn down free meals. But with the food comes a sales pitch.

    You can eat the food and say NO – not interested. Or say “let me take the information home and study it.” If you feel pressured by the sales people to sign up right there and then – it’s a good chance they are working on a commission and do not really care about you except as part of their commission check!

    High pressure sales tactics are not unheard of – several insurers got in trouble due to this a while back. If any sales person tells you that you must sign up for their insurance immediately because it’s a limited time offer – RUN the other way! You have a few months in which to make the decision…and it’s one that you want to think about.

    Changing insurers may mean you need to switch physicians and you’ll want to think about that. You’ll need to check each plan in which you might have interest and see if your current providers are part of the new plan. You’ll also want to compare out of pocket costs like co-payments, daily hospital rates and the maximum you must pay before the insurance kicks in.

    I got a “blurb” in the mail yesterday that said it starts at $0. [There are a few of these.] So I went online to find out more about this because I was not about to call them and talk to a sales person. For starters even tho I am web savvy – the site was not easy to negotiate and for many of the questions I had – I needed to open a .pdf file.

    So I decided to stop looking at that insurance for now because it seemed to me the goal of the site was to get me to call or go to a meeting – which is exactly what I was trying to NOT do!

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,