Senior Marketing Specialists Wishes You A Happy New Year!

Are your clients prepared for Medicare in 2014?

Have you helped your client make the most of Medicare in 2014 by encouraging them to schedule their preventive care visit?



For those with Medicare, the health care law offers most preventive health care services for free. Benefits include annual wellness visits, immunizations and some cancer screenings.

Medicare Advantage Dis-enrollment Period

The Medicare Advantage Dis-enrollment Period (or MADP) begins on January 1, 2014 and continues through February 14th.  During the MADP, you can drop your Medicare Advantage plan and return to original Medicare, plus you will be able to join a stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plan.

Special Enrollment Period

The Special Enrollment Period for discontinued plans (or Service Area Reductions) will start on December 8th and continue through February 28, 2014, with the new 2014 plan coverage beginning on the first day of the month following enrollment.

Eligibility Requirements for Medicare Covered Home Health Services

To be eligible for Medicare-covered home health services, a beneficiary must meet three requirements:

• he/she must be homebound,

• he/she must need part-time or intermittent skilled nursing care and/or skilled rehabilitation, or, after establishing prior eligibility, a continuing need for occupational therapy, and

• he/she must be under the care of a physician and need reasonable and necessary home health services that have been certified by a physician and established in a 60-day plan of care.

Budget Proposal Seeks Home Health Care Copay

As we head into the wrap up of OEP Congress and the President will be busy trying to work on making Medicare a fiscally viable program. One of the latest proposals would affect Medicare’s Home Health Care benefit:

• A large portion of the proposed budgetary increase is supposed to come from instituting $100 Medicare copayments for Medicare patients who use home health care. 
• The $100 copayment is supposed to produce $730 million from patients who currently use home health care but do not pay for the services they receive.
• The proposed copayment would apply to episodes of care requiring five or more visits over a period of 60 days or less, which in 2008 would have applied to 63 percent of episodes.
• The problem with the assumption that many people are using home health care that could instead seek outpatient care is that home health care prevents a lot of inpatient hospital stays.

Join us at Senior Marketing Specialist for the first of two webinars this Wednesday November 20^th to find out more about an inexpensive answer to help your clients recover at home, regardless of other coverage including Medicare.

The Future is Bright!

Dan McNerney, President and CEO of McNerney Management Group, is proud to announce that after 36 extremely successful years, he is retiring and passing the torch to his Executive Leadership team of Bobby Richardson, David McNerney, and JoAnn Wray.

“I have been so blessed in my career and life to have the partnerships and relationships I’ve had over the years that have enabled me to reach every goal in my Career. I am now able to reach some new goals and spend more time with family in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

Our company has seen such tremendous growth over my 36 years and I am proud to pass the torch to the Leadership Team that has spent their entire adult life building this company side-by-side with me.

With the addition of the new state of the art training center in our home office, additional offices opening in several cities throughout the country, the career division doubling in size, the brokerage division at over 8,000 agents, an on-line training campus, and the best staff and support systems that genuinely care about the success of our agents and each other, 2014 and beyond is set to be more successful and ground breaking than anything we have ever seen!” Dan McNerney

We would love for Dan to hear from you. Whether you would like to leave a brief message, share a funny story, or tell how you and Dan met/have worked together. Dan has touched and inspired so many lives with his motivational speeches, trainings, and in everyday conversations.

Please click here to leave Dan a personal message.

CMS has announces the amounts for Part A and Part B premiums and deductibles

CMS has announced today the amounts for Part A and Part B premiums and deductibles:

•    Part A Premium will be $426 per month, a $15 reduction over the 2013 amount (for those who actually pay Part A premiums)

•    Part A Deductible will be $1216 per benefit period, a $32 increase over the 2013 amount

•    Part B Premiums will be unchanged at $104.90 for individuals below the $85,000 individual income level.  Premiums for individuals above this level also are unchanged.

•    Part B Deductible remains unchanged at $147

See the full  CMS press release at:

http://cms.hhs.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases-Items/2013-10-28.html

Why Cash is King...Hospital Indemnity Insurance

Indemnity insurance plans were one of the first health plans to ever be sold in this country. A very simple concept, if you have an illness or accident and accrue medical bills we, the insurer, will pay you a set dollar, indemnity, amount based upon the policy provisions for coverage. 

Many policies in the health insurance field today are so complicated in their benefit structure that even I, with 30+ years’ experience, have a have a hard time understanding what is covered and how much am I going to get paid. The Hospital Indemnity Policies being offered today are a classic example of knowing what you’re buying and understanding the benefits. These policies provide cash to the policyholder that can be used for any number of items after they have been confined to a hospital:

• Paying health insurance deductibles, whether underage, Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement.
• Paying for charges not covered by other insurance.
• Paying for relative travel and lodging to help out.
• Paying for relative travel and lodging to help out.
• Paying bills at home. 
• Paying for housekeeping while you recover.
• Etc...

Many of these policies also offer riders to pay for doctors, surgery, cancer and prescription drugs.  In most cases the cash indemnity is paid to the policyholder direct and they can then use the money as they see fit. The underwriting is minimal and premiums are affordable, starting at just a few dollars a month. Even those on a fixed budget may able to afford this coverage.

The largest medical bills that a person receives are when they end up hospitalized for illness or accident. So, why not insure that risk and make sure you have the money when you need it the most, after being confined to a hospital for illness or accident. After all, CASH IS KING!!!

(This article was written by Philip Warren of Senior Marketing Specialists.)