Nikki Foley: I have a guest with me today on the show, and I’m looking right at him here! But I have to tell my story of how I got to know Brian.

We’d had some pleasantries and got to know each other just briefly, but I needed a black and white answer on something. Brian and I had really not had any exchanges on that level, up to this point, from when we were introduced.

I was looking at a situation with a client, and it was a Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement plans. These don’t often interact, but every once in a while, when you’re trying to move from one place to the next.

The individual I was working with, like I said, had a unique situation that I had researched myself. I called the insurance company. I felt like I wanted to believe what the insurance company was telling me, but they couldn’t give me a written answer. And one thing that I have learned in this industry is to make sure that you have a written answer or the rules behind something. It gives me a lot of peace of mind for myself and for my clients.

And so I called Brian and I said, “I need a ‘why.’ I need you to tell me, because I’m reading a document that contradicts what the insurance company is telling me, but I believe them. So, can you give me the why?” And Brian was able to do that. He sent me the written documentation from Medicare.

And so, I’m so pleased to have him on the show with us today. Welcome to Paladin Financial Talk, Brian. I’m your host, Nikki, and I’m really happy that you’re able to join us today as our featured guest. You have been a valuable resource to me, and now I’ve used you a few times along the way.

So we are going to take a complicated topic and try to turn it into something that’s just a simple personalized conversation today as best we can.

Brian Eck: Thanks for having me.

Nikki Foley: Absolutely. Well, Brian, you have a fantastic background here. But before we get into that, I just want to tell you a little bit about what we’re doing with our series that we’re working on right now. We at Paladin Financial believe that health and wealth just intersect in so many areas. And so we actually have health insurance, or not health insurance, but health and wellness as its own pillar within our firm. When I talk about our pillars, it’s the financial, the health, and then we have tax and estate planning.

In this five-part series that we’re working on right now, we’re exploring how to stay healthy, navigate health care with confidence, and get the most from every health care dollar that somebody is spending. Today, because of your long history in this health insurance industry, I’m really excited to be able to just make this a really basic conversation about navigating the system, helping us understand some of the terminology.

But let me tell our audience why I think you’re well equipped to do this. You have been in this industry as a health insurance and Medicare executive for well over 20 years. You have held senior leadership roles with major healthcare carriers in the market and that’s been on the sales and marketing side primarily. You’ve been a keynote speaker; a featured speaker and I am positive before you and I became acquainted in the role we are today, I am pretty sure that I talked to you at some point in your history as an executive at the insurance company that you’ve been most recently at.

So again, you have expertise in Medicare, health insurance, healthcare consulting, helping consumers simply understand this industry. And I’m sure I missed a whole lot. I kept it pretty high level there. Seems enough though, doesn’t it?! Well, I feel like it’s when I look at your resume, I’m more than impressed. And so if there’s anything else that you’d like to share? Wou’re certainly welcome too

Brian Eck: I would say that one of the things that my career’s allowed me to do is I’ve been working with individuals on their health and been very active volunteering then in organizations that provide additional supports to folks. So driving for Meals on Wheels, for example, working at facilities that are providing other food resources for folks and even helping children helping first and second graders read has been a program that I really enjoyed working on. So all of that kind of gets together to improve health of a difference from a different way for people in our communities.

Nikki Foley: Yeah, you probably have seen so many stories through the years that you can’t help but follow your heart and do some of the things back in the community that support that.

Well, thank you for being that person for the consumers and the Twin Cities and all over that have used you and that you’ve been helping through your volunteering as well.

So, let’s do this in a question-and-answer format. And I feel like my questions could go on and on, but I’m going to try to keep them to what we discussed ahead of time.

Just begin by explaining the difference between the parties that are involved in a health insurance relationship.

Brian Eck: Very good. Well, we start first with the consumer, the patient to the policy holder, the member, and really everything else revolves around that one individual.

They’ll have primary care doctors that they see and that doctor might be part of a larger physician group which would have specialists and such that they could also then be referred to.

The network of providers is very important. Most health plans do have contracts with certain providers, and some providers are simply not in network for the best benefit for us for making their dollars go further that the member the patient needs to be sure that they stay in network if at all possible.

And then lastly, we have the insurance companies that provide the coverage for this.

Very different if you’re under age 65. You might have your insurance coming from an employer. You might be on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces and purchasing coverage for yourself and your family in that way. All the plans, though will have certain defined benefits. They’ll have defined costs to the member and the patient and that is how basically your health care is delivered and funded for you.

Nikki Foley: Yeah, just beginning with the basic terminology is such a key piece of this. And if we can help our listeners and those that we interact with start with the basics, a lot of times it’s easier to connect all the dots. And so that was helpful as you made those connections between those parties.

But you also led right into where I wanted to go with the next terminology. So explain the terminology and the relationships between premium, co-pay, coinsurance, deductible, max out of pocket. I feel like those are all fairly recurring ones that you see. And so if you have a couple of other ones you want to add in there, but if you can go through that relationship as well.

Brian Eck: So basically what we’re getting here is how the individual member or consumer pays for the care that they receive.

Premium is probably the biggest one that folks see. That’s the monthly cost that you get for insurance coverage coming from the carrier. Now, carriers will offer a number of different ways to kind of keep that premium cost down. I’ve talked with people over the years that have said what I would really like is just a plan that covers everything. I don’t have to pay a dime out of pocket afterwards. And you can do that, but when you realize or think about what it means to cover everything, that means everything is paid for on your behalf, and that would be very expensive if that were to be done. So what the carrier will do is add things like co-pays which is a set dollar amount that you pay for certain services.

Co-pays that you pay yourself reduce your premium cost. Coinsurance can come into play as well. This would be something like the plan maybe covers 80% of the cost of given service. You would be responsible then for 20% of that. Again it helps to keep down overall costs.

The deductibles that you meet first that’s oftentimes after you pay that premium you may have to pay then a deductible for major services.

Good news is that there are some preventive and screening services that are typically available without having to go into that deductible. We can touch on those in a little bit here.

So basically all of these things kind of come together to help the individual retain coverage hopefully make it or keep it affordable when you do actually have to access care and really doesn’t become an impediment. We don’t want patients to think I may need this service. I don’t know if I can afford it even if I have insurance. How we did our job on the carrier side was to make sure that we kept things as affordable as possible while keeping costs and things appropriate for the usage that folks would have.

Nikki Foley: As I’m interacting with our clients and prospective clients on this conversation, I oftentimes ask them to pull back, and remind them that health insurance is a business. And every business has to have levers that they can pull to control cost. So the higher your premium, the less that you may have in co-pays or co-insurance and deductibles because you’re paying more upfront. Exactly. The lower that premium is, the more you’re going to pay as you go. And that’s really just a business perspective. But it also puts the cost on the client, and this comes back to maybe relates to the concept of high-deductible health plans. And even if it’s not defined, that whole concept of putting your health care back in your own hands because you’re paying more upfront is a piece of all of this. And so the more that you can control your health, the more that you can be preventive along the way, it lowers your cost, and they’re making you participate in that earlier on. And so I really do like this part of the conversation because when you like I said, when you zoom out a little bit and talk about it kind of from a big picture perspective, you get out of the nitty-gritty, but you also they that nitty-gritty becomes a little bit clearer because you understand what a business is trying to do to help with cost and how you can share back and forth with that.

Brian Eck: You really see some of that happen on the Medicare side of things and that’s how a lot of the products are designed is to really participate in that conversation like that.

Nikki Foley: Today we’re trying to keep it at high enough level though we don’t get into too much on any specific one product. But as you described that I think about, and you said this is it’s how you pay your bill. And oftentimes people get really concerned when they see that bill shows up and it’s not what they expected. And so can you give us an example of where you have seen this and maybe you have helped somebody through that. I can certainly give you several of them as well but you’ve been doing this for many years, so give us a couple examples or at least one.

Brian Eck: Yeah. So there’s a couple and I think many of you, if you’ve been to the doctor, you’ve seen this yourself. Maybe a week or two later you get an Explanation of Benefits, and it shows these were the tests that were done. This is what the retail cost is and what the insurance company will cover. And I’ve had a lot of patients who’ve just looked at that retail cost and thought, “My god, I can’t pay that. What am I going to do?” because they’re unfortunately not real easy documents to follow sometimes. Billing statements from the clinic can also do that. They might get a billing statement that shows everything just the costs and then down in the fine print it says this has been submitted to your insurance company as well. But those two things, I would receive most calls from members over the years. I just got this. What does it mean? Kind of explain that through and explain that no, that’s not exactly what you owe. This part, this column over here is the one you should be focused on. Really helping people become a little more literate in how they use their documentation that comes in with their insurance.

Nikki Foley: You make great points as you’re just talking through that. First of all, the Explanation of Benefits. Sometimes people don’t recognize that’s not a bill. It’s simply an explanation of their benefits and who’s paying what. And what do your eyes go to when you look at that? You go right to the one that has the dollar amount. And sometimes you even forget to read the column headings and the fine print and so forth. And so you’re right that document alone can be confusing for somebody.

And then the other piece that I think comes into it on the billing is sometimes you don’t recognize that there could be multiple bills from different people who participate in your services. And that can become overwhelming when you get one and you think you’ve paid for something and yet two more might show up because you had multiple services billed from different providers or what that might look like or organizations. And so taking your time and I think being patient. And if you don’t understand it the insurance company is often a great resource to call.

Or in our role, I’m somebody that is providing health insurance and Medicare support, I am happy to walk through it, and that’s really when I start to get calls as well is something that they don’t understand. I’ll just use a simple example, sometimes on the Medicare side, you forget when you are on original Medicare and you have Medicare Supplement that you have a deductible that you have to pay with Part B as well. And if you’re early in the year, you oftentimes are paying more than you realize because you’re moving through your deductible phase. And so that’s probably the most common thing when somebody’s still in their deductible phase and they’re paying more than they were expecting because they forgot about that portion of it. Well, that’s helpful when you look at it from, I get a bill, let me work backwards. And so thank you for that Brian.

So next thing and you alluded to this a moment ago is preventive services. Sometimes preventive services are provided complimentary or for a very low cost. Will you walk through how that’s set up and that relationship?

Brian Eck: So let’s start with under 65 population first. Basically most health insurance plans are considered Affordable Care Act compatible and there are defined screenings and tests that were built right into the coverage that requires or that defines whether you’re ACA compliant, excuse me. That would be screenings for things like blood pressure, diabetes, hepatitis counseling for smoking cessation and things like that. Vaccinations for individuals, not only adults but also children as well.

Then there are some additional screenings just specifically for women and specifically for children. That’s all written right into the law. An insurer could have an option of maybe going above and beyond that if they choose to. But it’s a pretty good package of coverages that designed to kind of keep you healthy in the first place.

Medicare has typically lagged a little bit behind this. Traditional Medicare is really built more like a traditional insurance plan. So think about your auto insurance. You get in an accident; auto insurance covers your vehicle for getting back on the road. What it doesn’t cover though is changing the oil or rotating the tires. That’s considered preventive maintenance and you’re supposed to do it on your own. Medicare had done that as well. So things like annual physicals and a lot of other screening just simply weren’t part of the package. That’s been changing gradually. Some additional things have come in, and I think it’s improved for our Medicare beneficiaries. But I also think that’s one where you look to your insurance as well. What above and beyond what Medicare does my insurance able to provide to me?

Nikki Foley: Oftentimes health insurance and health care doesn’t show up until there’s a scenario right in front of you. So you are forced to make a health insurance decision because you have left the workplace and you have to do it on your own or you’re in a situation where you have a medical need and so then you’re to the point you have how do I how do I understand this? What is really happening?

And I would say as it relates to your conversation there, knowing what is preventive actually really changes your perspective when you’re making a selection because the great news is sometimes we have a really healthy population that I’m working with and they don’t go to the doctor and then they think about paying 500 and 600 and 700 $1,200 and they’re like but I don’t even use the I don’t even use this. And so when they start to learn what their preventive services that they get complimentary, they might make another decision along the way. And so same thing on the Medicare portion of it is to understand what you get as complimentary and what the Affordable Care Act has made available to us is important when you’re making your decisions on those plans.

Well, you’ve done a great job of explaining how that fits in. So and one of the pieces that you get with any insurance that you are looking to sign up for is a summary of benefits or an explanation of what your insurance plan covers. And that is always well written and documented inside of that. And so that’s something that sometimes if you’re coming off of being on an employer plan your health, your HR team has picked one, two, three plans that you can have available to you and you don’t have to do the research. So when you enter into at some point in your life where you’re making your own health insurance decisions, you don’t even know what to ask for or where to look.

Brian Eck: True, every plan has a document that fully explains what Brian just went through. And it’s usually called a summary of benefits or an Explanation of Benefits that tell you what’s included at what percentage, what’s complimentary, or part of this preventive conversation that we just talked about. So ask for that if you’re somebody that really wants to get into the details.

Nikki Foley: Brian, I was just talking with a gentleman last week. We were training on another conversation that was related to the financial side and he said a statistic that on average you will see health insurance increase be 5% or more each year over the next 10 years which is more than the average cost of living that people are seeing and so that can be overwhelming. I did some additional research to see when you hear a statistic you want to make sure that you can back that up some of them are saying even more than that and I think people have probably found in their own experience that one year it goes up 12% and another year maybe it’s back down you celebrate when it’s only 6%. And so can you lend some perspective to the rising cost of healthcare? This is one that really bothers people.

Brian Eck: It does. It does. And I think this is where we first should congratulate healthcare because they are continuing to make really amazing advances in care and in treatment plans. Just some of the changes in prescription drugs over the last 5 to 10 years. We have conditions that people were just chronically suffering. There were really no options for care, and we’ve been able to find pharmaceutical options that are working. We’re also able to kind of find and start treating illnesses on a much earlier basis. Those things cost money plain pure and simple. If it’s particularly something that’s very cutting edge and kind of dealing with rare conditions, you’re going to see some costs that come into play there and that all folds into the overall cost of our medical care. One of the things that we see that also is kind of driving some costs up and this is kind of unfortunate but we’re seeing a lot of mergers between clinics and hospitals larger systems that are able to frankly negotiate higher rates for themselves. That also then shows up in the premium rates that the patients are paying for that care. It’s good for the provider. We need the providers to be solvent and still be able to deliver the care that members need. But yeah, there is a cost to that comes into play with that.

Nikki Foley: I think you did a nice job of framing it from the right perspective out of the get-go in your answer there is think how much we celebrate the advances and when we have a loved one or ourselves that’s going through something and we’re so grateful for the level of care that we can get here but sometimes we forget that as we’re going through it that sometimes we’re making an investment in our healthcare long before we ever show up and need that level of support. So, that was a great perspective and a great framework and just reminding ourselves to put the right lens on so that we’re looking at it through the right perspective. So, what advice would you offer me or any of our listeners to make sure that we’re doing our part and helping control cost?

Brian Eck: Well, one of the important ones that I’ve seen even personally, if a doctor is talking to you and they say, “You should have this sort of treatment with this sort of prescription, I’ll ask, is this really necessary?” Yeah. To be sure a lot of times and I appreciate this about a good doctor should be looking at and making sure that all possible diagnoses are covered for sometimes that might involve something that you maybe it’s a prescription that you take didn’t affect anything. So, okay, we’re ruling out then that particular diagnosis. But other times it’s if it really isn’t necessary, it’s good to kind of put the question back out that I would also say for since we’re talking about prescription drugs, always ask if there’s a generic version of that prescription drug available. Generic drugs, brand name drugs, at the base level are the exact same thing. The active ingredients are the same. I know some people I’ve talked to that said they have allergies to generic prescriptions. Turns out they don’t have allergies to the ingredients. Oftentimes there’ll be a different color dye that’s used to differentiate the generic from the brand name one. And that’s what we found most of the allergic symptoms coming from. It’s just the dyes that are brought in. Keep up with your preventive services. That is our job as patients in this whole process here to make sure that we’re keeping ourselves healthy, that we’re staying on top of things. We’re using those covered services readily. And lastly, and I cannot emphasize this enough, open your mail. You get things from your health plan; you get things from your doctor. Open it up, see what it is. They wouldn’t send it to you if they didn’t feel it was important in some way or another. And the worst thing that can happen is it is something that’s important. You don’t open it, you miss it, and you’ve caused yourself problems in coverage or service in the future. We were talking about stories a little bit ago and what do we hear? Okay, I’m going to go back, and I said most common is their bill and they don’t understand it. Most common is they don’t open their mail, and they don’t know what has come and they have an aha moment when they open their mail and realize it.

Nikki Foley: So, okay, that was a good one. And that’s from your years of history there that in this industry. Well, those were really good ones. I didn’t know about that dye one. So it’s always fun to hear a little bit behind the scenes that the average person might not know. Anecdotes are fun. Absolutely. So speaking of the mail, deadlines. Deadlines are critical in the health insurance industry and oftentimes we live in this world where some things are negotiable but on the health insurance side, oftentimes things are not negotiable. There are really hard deadlines and so are there any key dates that you could share with us for this industry so that people have some idea of what they should be looking for?

Brian Eck: So we’ll start under 65. Most organizations have gone to kind of an open enrollment period where you renew your benefits. Most often it’s in the fall. Sometimes though it can be more midyear. It really depends. I know a lot of school districts make those changes in mid-year because their school year ends in June and starts again in July. And so they have done that in mid-year. In those cases, be sure that you review the plan that you’re currently on. See if there are any changes. I have seen situations where basically some plan options had been dropped and the person didn’t know because they didn’t open their mail and they didn’t find that out until later. Medicare is a little more involved because Medicare is driven initially by when you turn 65. So an individual becomes Medicare eligible by age in the month they turn 65. So my birthday, for example, is the 30th of the month. I would be eligible for Medicare for the first of that month. It always goes and gives you that first of the month and Medicare because it can’t help but be confusing. If you were born on the first of the month, you actually get an extra month. It starts on the month beforehand. Some people, if they’re continuing to work after age 65, they should sign up for Medicare Part A, just getting started, but do not sign up for Part B until you retire. Part B has a premium and it has an open enrollment period available to you that you can pick up when you are ready to retire and then have Medicare fully covering your, health care needs. Other than that, Medicare runs an open enrollment every fall. Typically starts right around October 15th to December 7th where you can make changes to plans. Minnesota and many states do have open enrollment periods for people on Medicare Supplement plans where they can make some changes from one plan to another. So be aware of those things. In particular if you pick a plan and you find out I don’t like this at all there are in some cases chances where you can move from that and knowing your Medicare enrollment periods is very important for that.

Nikki Foley: Absolutely. So in summary, fall is often a very busy time whether we’re pre65 or post65. There’s a lot going on.

Brian Eck: Yeah. Yeah.

Nikki Foley: So that’s when you see all the advertisements and people recognize that there is something going on. Oftentimes knowing the details of that is where it’s important to apply it back to you. So, fall is a busy time, but knowing when you’re, when that whatever you’re on right now, just being familiar with that and using the resources around you, whether that’s an HR team that can support you or an insurance company. But if you pull out that card and you have any questions about what your enrollment might look like, you can certainly call the insurance company, and they’ll be able to help you with that.

Brian Eck: The insurance company or if it’s possible for you, a good agent is also a really good resource to have.

Nikki Foley: And I’ll talk about that for just a very high level since you brought it up. The insurance companies in most cases are the ones compensating an insurance specialist, an insurance agent. And so the role of an insurance carrier is to make sure that they can support the population, their members, and prospective members, but they can’t always do that with the employees that are sitting within their four walls. And so they use the field, an independent insurance agent out there, to help support that. And they pay them. And it’s just two different models whether they’re using an employee or somebody that’s out in the field. And so for the consumer and our listeners here, there’s usually no cost to have that level of support. And so take advantage of it and make sure that you are getting the hands-on if that’s something that’s important. Okay, bonus question and then we’ll stop the rapid fire here. So this whole concept of GLP-1s and what’s going on in the world around us. So, I read some statistic maybe oh a week ago or two weeks ago that this is one of the most popular with over 50% of people knowing that this is a topic that’s happening around them which is a pretty high number for something like this. Tell us what is this good? Is it a bad thing? What’s happening? How’s it impacting insurance companies? How’s it impacting the industry, the end consumer and so forth?

Brian Eck: Right. So, we talked about advances that we’ve made in pharmaceuticals. Go back 10 years ago and if somebody said, “We’ve come up with a shot or a pill that can relieve morbid obesity.” I think we all would have stood up and said, “Yes, let’s do that.”, and it is a life-changing thing for people that have been suffering with obesity. There are so many comorbidities that come with that diagnosis as well. High blood pressure, type one or even type two diabetes, heart issues, on and on and on that by helping that patient, that consumer, get their weight down through a GLP-1. Yeah, it’s life-changing. And it’s not cheap. And we still have some research to do on long-term effects and on ability of individuals to maintain a weight loss. Or is this something that becomes more like a chronic condition treatment? We don’t know that as yet. But for what it’s been able to do for folks, yeah, it does increase insurance cost. Absolutely. But this is a good thing to do. This is a really good thing for us to do for our citizens, our neighbors, our friends.

Nikki Foley: Yeah. So even if it’s increasing it on one side, there’s a good chance it’s pushing it down by less prescription drugs in another area potentially and overall getting more balance in the wellness and the preventive.

Brian Eck: That’s the piece that’s that the measurements are on right now just to see okay, how much of this is sustainable? What did we actually save on all of these other treatments?

Nikki Foley: Well, I had to bring it in because it’s such a popular topic right now.

Brian Eck: It is. It is. And I guess folks, if you’re curious, talk to your doctor. See if this is something that makes sense for you. It isn’t for everybody. I think that’s 100% sure, but I also think that it’s not something you should be afraid to talk to your doctor about.

Nikki Foley: Absolutely. Well, I’ll put my statistics. I brought up a couple statistics, but I haven’t named the sources in our show here. I’ll put them in our show notes so that anybody can continue to do a little more research based on some of the numbers I’ve given today. Well, is there anything else that you’d like to add to the conversation or a piece of advice that you’d like to offer myself or our listeners?

Brian Eck: Well, I think I kind of hit on this, but I’ll just reinforce it. Be a wise consumer, we’re oftentimes as a patient, we’re not, we’re not really prepared for this. The doctor knows more than we do, so we can’t really question them, right? Well, but yeah, you have to question if only so that better what’s going on with your health, and you can participate in it rather than just being just an observer if you will. That will help a lot. That’ll allow you also to, I think, better understand as conflicting information comes to you about how to treat certain things. If and you’re aware of this, you’ll be able to sift through the things that are maybe advertising and come to things that are actually really beneficial to you.

Nikki Foley: So, I heard you Brian say be active in your own healthcare.

Brian Eck: Yeah, you’ve got them.

Nikki Foley: Are there any recommendations for a resource that you would like to offer our listeners?

Brian Eck: I think most of our Medicare folks know this, but if not, the website medicare.gov is much better than you would ever think it is. The amount of information that’s there, helpful information on things like health, on insurance, living with Medicare, really well laid out and really well done.

I also would suggest maybe checking out some provider websites to see how they are addressing certain conditions.

Mayo Clinic has always had a very robust website that allows you to get a diagnosis. You can look it up on Mayo Clinic and see just how they are recommending treatment for that condition.

Nikki Foley: I’ll add one more piece to that. As you’re looking at resources, read slowly. There are so many terms within this industry that are very similar, especially once you get into the Medicare. You have Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, original Medicare, Medigap. I mean, and some of them are synonymous for each other. So, I would say read slowly when you’re reading. Oftentimes we’re in a society where we move fast and we skim things and we want information in very short segments now. Some of it is just slow down is my only piece to go along with that well if there’s anything else that you want to chime in before I wrap up you’re welcome to but you’ve been a tremendous resource to us and you’ve given us great terminology and really what I was hoping for is for you to lay the foundation and give us some basics so that we can help navigate this system which oftentimes can be complex for people because they haven’t had to do it.

If they’ve been part of the employer world where they haven’t had to do something, somebody else is, or they’re healthy and they haven’t had to interface as often until something goes wrong.

Brian Eck: Yeah, exactly. You’re healthy until you’re not and then you’re faced with something that you have to navigate on your own.

Nikki Foley: Well, if you as a listener want to take the next step, you can check out one of the downloads that we make available. And the download for this series is called, it’s an interactive flowchart. It’s called Reviewing my Health and Life Insurance Policies,” and it helps clients see how you transition into retirement and how you don’t automatically need to go on to Medicare as an example. There are several decisions that could help coordinate as part of this move. And so helping understand your options, identifying the important timing decisions that Brian and I started to talk about today highlights HSA and the Medicare connection, making retirement healthcare part of the overall financial plan. So, it’s a really great checklist that just it’s basically a flowchart. If you answer yes to this, then here’s your next three options. If you answer no to something, it takes you somewhere else. And so, it does that both for the health conversation and life insurance conversation. So, we try to make educational resources available and that’s the one that we’re offering as our option to go along with this series. So, go to paladinfinancialtalk.com to access that.

And like I said before, we have several show notes that we’ll include and links that you can reach out to, including the ones that Brian brought up about medicare.gov, some of the articles I’ve read recently.

And if you’re sitting here thinking, my gosh, I want to talk to somebody. Well, you can book a 15-minute no-obligation conversation with us by going to paladinfinancial.com or paladinfinancialtalk.com. You can always call us at 651-842-8406 as well and book that consultation so we can help you navigate some of these harder conversations.

And if you’re following along and like what you’ve heard today, certainly look for more on our YouTube channel. Look for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, any of the social media. And again, YouTube always has our full show and other items related to this topic.

Well, thanks for listening today and we look forward to seeing you next time.