Medicare Telemarketers

[Bill Dufour]

Mike beat me to it. I understand a broker gets $70 for each medicare customer they sign up. I have no idea if they get money next year if nothing changes?
Bill D

[Rick Potter]

I average maybe 8-10 a day on the land line, which is always unanswered, and we check messages, and seldom answer them. Cell phone we get hardly any thank goodness.

Most robocalls are from people who want to buy one of my rentals for cheap, so they can flip them in a week, like they learned on HGTV, followed by car warranties or medical stuff. Our number is still in the book, if there still is a phone book.

[Ronald Blue]

I have received zero calls and wouldn't take them if I did. As was already mentioned I do receive snail mail but that is easily dealt with. We haven't had a land line in 7 or 8 years so that's not an issue. I do wonder how they get some addresses for the mailings though. We lost our youngest son in a car accident 20 years ago this month. We received a mailing in his name just recently at this address. It never existed until 5 years ago (we built a new home on a location that was a field) and we have moved twice since that day.

[Von Bickley]

We eliminated our landline. So nice not hearing that phone.

[Rod Sheridan]

Haha, Martha, we see her in Canada when watching PBS.

What are they actually selling? I was under the impression that healthcare was paid for by the government for people 65 and older?

I turned 65 and my co-pay on prescriptions is now $100 per year, it’s weird when you go to the pharmacy a few times and exceed the $100 dollars.

After that they just hand you your prescription at no charge while I stand there with my debit card in hand looking confused.

Regards, Rod

[Brian Elfert]

Medical care for those 65 and older in the USA is what I would call a mess. Medicare is not free. It is $175 a month for the part that covers doctor visits. There is a 20% co-pay for doctor visits and other routine care. A hospitalization has a $1600 deductible that applies to any hospital bills for 60 days. If you go 60 days without any hospitalization you pay another $1,600. There is a $400 per day co-pay if you hospitalized over 60 days. A nursing home is only covered for 20 days. Medicare does not pay for routine annual physicals, nor for vision care. There is no prescription drug coverage by default unless the drugs are administered in a hospital, or other medical facility. You have to buy part D coverage for prescriptions.

Most retirees will take out additional health insurance that covers some of these costs, and often has additional benefits. Some of the additional insurance will include part D coverage for prescription drugs.

All of the telemarketing is to get seniors on Medicare to sign up for additional insurance as it is annual Medicare open enrollment season. The amount of advertising and marketing for Medicare plans is simply crazy. I still get a daily newspaper and there will be at least half a dozen inserts weekly in the paper advertising Medicare plans.

[Ronald Blue]

Medical care for those 65 and older in the USA is what I would call a mess. Medicare is not free. It is $175 a month for the part that covers doctor visits. There is a 20% co-pay for doctor visits and other routine care. A hospitalization has a $1600 deductible that applies to any hospital bills for 60 days. If you go 60 days without any hospitalization you pay another $1,600. There is a $400 per day co-pay if you hospitalized over 60 days. A nursing home is only covered for 20 days. Medicare does not pay for routine annual physicals, nor for vision care. There is no prescription drug coverage by default unless the drugs are administered in a hospital, or other medical facility. You have to buy part D coverage for prescriptions.

Most retirees will take out additional health insurance that covers some of these costs, and often has additional benefits. Some of the additional insurance will include part D coverage for prescription drugs.

All of the telemarketing is to get seniors on Medicare to sign up for additional insurance as it is annual Medicare open enrollment season. The amount of advertising and marketing for Medicare plans is simply crazy. I still get a daily newspaper and there will be at least half a dozen inserts weekly in the paper advertising Medicare plans.

And that's where the Advantage plans are much better. I have optical and dental. All my prescriptions are free. Some aren't but the ones I use are. I get an annual physical and in-network PCP is no charge. Specialists are $30 co-pay. What's available for a person varies by state and county. If one has an account they can compare all the available plans for their specific area. I pay the monthly soon to be $175 as well but nothing else. If you have straight Medicare with a supplement the premium will continue to increase year after year. Everyone has to decide what is best for them.

[Jim Becker]

I agree, Ron, and that's the direction I took. But not because of any phone calls that this thread is about...which I fortunately do not get.

[Jim Koepke]

On the land lines, most calls come in over internet, most likely from some low cost labor country. There is always a delay between my answering and the calling end. It used to annoy me that after waiting a few seconds someone would come on and say, "hello." Now it is kind of fun to hang up on them as they begin to say, "hello." I know the feeling of frustration of experiencing this from my days of being a field service tech. Many of the second tier pay phones at the time had a similar delay when calling from them. Getting hung up on before a connection completed was not only frustrating, it cost me some change.

jtk

[Lee DeRaud]

On the land lines, most calls come in over internet, most likely from some low cost labor country. There is always a delay between my answering and the calling end. It used to annoy me that after waiting a few seconds someone would come on and say, "hello." Now it is kind of fun to hang up on them as they begin to say, "hello." I know the feeling of frustration of experiencing this from my days of being a field service tech. Many of the second tier pay phones at the time had a similar delay when calling from them. Getting hung up on before a connection completed was not only frustrating, it cost me some change.

Most of the time with spammers/scammers, the delay is because their system dials multiple numbers at once and the calls are routed to operators as they are answered. The combination of delay and background voices is a pretty clear sign of a call coming from a phone bank.

Got one a couple days ago: delay, voices in background, then finally a (heavily accented) voice saying, "Dad?" (pause) "How are you?" Me: "Still childless." Then, "Dad? I broke my nose." (Bit slow on the uptake, this one.) Me: "Probably ought to go to the ER then." (pause) (click)

I suppose I shouldn't be at this point, but I'm still amazed that scams like this work often enough to be cost-effective, given the required infrastructure.

[Dave Fritz]

Any ad that says, a certified insurance agent will speak with you is a red flag. they make a commission. We're using the Medicare.gov web site and it saved us 3,000 this year. I think companies raise the price through the years because people find it too cumbersome to change. I do have a question however so I'm making an apt. with my local commission on aging for a free evaluation and help. None of these people make a cent from me other than their salary which is paid by my taxes. I'll use what I've already paid for and consider it an outstanding investment. Compare a public employee's salary to the insurance agent.

[Jim Becker]

Most of the time with spammers/scammers, the delay is because their system dials multiple numbers at once and the calls are routed to operators as they are answered. The combination of delay and background voices is a pretty clear sign of a call coming from a phone bank.

This is an accurate statement...a good chunk of my business prior to retirement was providing world-class contact center solutions to clients. Some systems have better prediction algorithms than others which affects the amount of delay before an "answered" call that was dialed is assigned to a live person, but the delay is absolutely because of what happens in software to assign the "answered" call as well as the ratio of out-dialed calls to people available to service them.

[Bill George]

A word of warning. I was all hyped about cutting my monthly premium cost by switching from Plan F to G. Wow when I signed up with F back in 2008 it was open enrollment for me and I got good rate. Now filling the application for G when I answered the health questions, now I am no longer getting a good rate, in fact it would be higher almost than I am paying Now for Plan F, nope not going to be a savings for me.

Be careful folks.

[Mike Henderson]

A word of warning. I was all hyped about cutting my monthly premium cost by switching from Plan F to G. Wow when I signed up with F back in 2008 it was open enrollment for me and I got good rate. Now filling the application for G when I answered the health questions, now I am no longer getting a good rate, in fact it would be higher almost than I am paying Now for Plan F, nope not going to be a savings for me.

Be careful folks.

Looks like you went through underwriting. That's a problem for people who initially sign up for an Advantage plan and then want to go back to original Medicare. You can do that, but you may go through underwriting for your supplement plan. If you have any health issues, that supplement plan can be cost prohibitive. You'd be stuck with your Advantage plan.

I'm not a big fan of Advantage plans for older people. Traditional Medicare gives you the most flexibility.

Mike

[Bill George]

Looks like you went through underwriting. That's a problem for people who initially sign up for an Advantage plan and then want to go back to original Medicare. You can do that, but you may go through underwriting for your supplement plan. If you have any health issues, that supplement plan can be cost prohibitive. You'd be stuck with your Advantage plan.

I'm not a big fan of Advantage plans for older people. Traditional Medicare gives you the most flexibility.

Mike

Nope always been on Plan F never any Advantage plan. The application never left my desk, I used the Form and the Rate book.