Andy Gossett (00:14.101)

Man, it's good to be here, Matt. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Looking forward to this.

 

Matt Feret (00:19.402)

Yeah, I am too. Tell everybody what you do and how long you've been doing that particular thing and how you help people.

 

Andy Gossett (00:25.717)

Yeah, I'm a manager of sales excellence, which is really interesting. I don't actually manage anybody, but I work with all of our supervisors at eHealth to better the beneficiary experience for the folks that are calling in to us. And so I've been doing this, I started Medicare about 11 years ago, or I counted my AEPs actually, I think it's just a little over 10 years, but it's 11 AEPs or annual enrollment periods.

 

So that's kind of my time in this role. And the way we help people is we just really believe that our seniors should be treated with dignity and respect. And so as a sales force and a sales floor, we wanna make sure that we're doing a good job of prepping our advisors to work with our beneficiaries so that the experience that they get when they call us is top notch.

 

Matt Feret (01:23.642)

Awesome. So you work for eHealth. Tell me, well actually tell the audience a little more about what eHealth does, how long they've been around, what do they do, how do they do it.

 

Andy Gossett (01:26.222)

That's correct.

 

Andy Gossett (01:34.637)

Yeah, e-health, we began back in the mid-90s, a gentleman by the name of Vip Patel. Actually about 10 years prior to that, he had an experience where he had food poisoning and nearly died from food poisoning because he just didn't have health insurance. He was scared to go to the doctor. And so roll forward 10 years, he's like, okay.

 

I want to keep other people from having this horrible experience that I had. And he created this, this really this marketplace where we can, folks can go on and be a one-stop shop that helps people understand and enroll in, in health insurance plans. That makes it simple, simplify it for them. And we mostly at this point serve Medicare customers. We do have a small business division and we do have some

 

individual family plans and those things, but the high majority of our business at this point is our Medicare population.

 

Matt Feret (02:38.054)

Okay, thanks. So explain how the company is constructed. You said you've got sales call send you like a sales call center floor. And I'm sure you've got a bunch of admin functions around that around data and servers and all sorts of fun stuff. So if I'm trying to like create eHealth and eHealth Medicare in my mind, as a consumer, like what should I picture? How do I picture this?

 

Andy Gossett (02:46.767)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (02:50.649)

Right.

 

Andy Gossett (03:02.573)

Yeah, so the most forward facing thing that we do is our website, which we've really updated to help our beneficiaries when they come online to be able to find and compare, look at their options all in one place so that they're not constantly having to navigate back and forth between, you know, ABC insurance carrier versus, you know, CDE insurance carriers. So.

 

That's the most forward facing thing that we do. And there's some really cool upgrades that we've made to that. But then people, while they're on that website, they may say, you know what, I need to, maybe I need to chat with somebody. So we have a team of advisors, that licensed advisors that can actually go on and begin to chat with them right over the, you know, right over the website, right on the website. And then it may be, you know what, I think I need to talk to somebody.

 

So they can pick up the phone and then they can call and that's where they'll get one of our licensed advisors that's licensed in their area ready to help them and walk them through what their options are. So from the forward-facing out, it's the website, possibly the chat, then the advisors that we work with. Obviously we have all of the support staff that surrounds those pieces and there's some additional pieces on the backside.

 

once somebody becomes a client of ours that we have other ways to interact. But from a consumer standpoint, it's website coming in and then the chat team and or the advisor team that's on the phone.

 

Matt Feret (04:44.706)

So you made mention in there, in your local area, help me understand what you meant by that.

 

Andy Gossett (04:48.117)

Mm-hmm. Well, as you as I'm sure you're full aware of the everybody has a zip code. And and so when particularly this time of year, there's thousands of plans across nationwide, but in your particular area, maybe there's 455060 plans that are available to you according to your particular zip code. So we want to make sure that

 

when you're calling in that you're talking with somebody that's licensed and aware of what's going on with the plans in your area, not just a area, but specifically where you're calling from based upon what the data we're seeing as you come in to chat with us.

 

Matt Feret (05:34.014)

Okay, so if I call in from the state of Illinois, does that mean you have somebody or a group of people that are specifically trained and they know what the doctors and the hospital networks look like? They are genuinely or generally, they know what's in that market? Or is it like, do they have five states? Do they have all 50 and you just happen to get somebody from Illinois? How does that work?

 

Andy Gossett (05:38.585)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (05:53.604)

Yes.

 

Andy Gossett (05:59.713)

Yeah, so there's a variety of folks, but Illinois as being one of the larger areas, we do have folks that are pretty specifically dedicated to that specific area. And so that allows them to be up to date on the plans. They're able to know exactly what's going on there. They can become familiar with hospital networks and doctor networks and...

 

And those kinds of things, they can start to glean some of that information because they do talk to a lot of people on a day-to-day basis, uh, as well as not just what they read and study and all the tests that they have to take prior to AEP, but it allows our annual enrollment period, but it allows them to become a market, to have market expertise in the area, um, where the caller's coming from.

 

Matt Feret (06:52.182)

So if I call in and up front somebody knows kind of about where I live, right? With my area code, I would assume, and maybe I enter my zip code in some place. Somebody's likely not going to mispronounce a hospital name that's in my town, right? They know what they're talking about.

 

Andy Gossett (06:59.237)

Mm-hmm. Right.

 

Andy Gossett (07:06.909)

That's the goal. So sometimes it can be a bit challenging even with that, but typically the goal is to, we just feel like the more familiarity that added viruses have with the area where the beneficiary is calling from, the better it is for all of us. From an experienced standpoint, from an advisor experience standpoint, from a beneficiary experience standpoint, it really makes a difference if they know.

 

if they have some knowledge of those things, yes.

 

Matt Feret (07:39.278)

Okay, thank you. So talk about the website a little bit. I was poking around on there before the show, and you have a lot of carriers up there and a lot of ways to sort. And it almost seems like it's a lot. So what is your corporate approach or what's your approach to the website that might be different than other people in the space or other experiences somebody may have?

 

Andy Gossett (07:50.71)

We do.

 

Andy Gossett (08:06.857)

Yeah. Yeah, I think it goes back to one of our core values, Matt, which is being customer centric. One of the things that we did in designing this website is we went and talked to a whole bunch of baby boomers, frankly, folks that were born in that 1946 to 1964 time frame. And I'm one of those. I am the last month.

 

of the last year of the Baby Boomers. So I've kind of pictured myself as like, I'm gonna, when I graduate out, I'm gonna close the door and that's it, the Baby Boomers are done. So I identify with that group, but there's an outdated, how shall I say it? There's just an outdated narrative of seniors and that they're technologically illiterate, maybe a little backward.

 

They're not comfortable with social media. They're not comfortable with technology. And we kind of have this narrative, but we wouldn't actually talk to these beneficiaries. We found out a totally different story that they wanted to be self-sufficient. They wanted to be able to have the ability to self-source to a certain degree. They wanted help available, but they didn't want somebody hovering over their shoulder constantly. Like, here's what you do. Click this button, do this thing.

 

when they're trying to search and think and look. And so when we designed our website, we wanted to keep that beneficiary group in mind. And, you know, with counterculture, you know, we talk about counterculture a lot, right? And I know, you know, if we have younger folks listening to this, some of them think, oh, we've got the corner on counterculture. And I like to, I do like to point out to them that, you know, these beneficiaries, they didn't just read about Woodstock.

 

Some of them were at Woodstock. Like that's their generation. That's who they are. The first Saturday Night Live, you know, which is still, you know, I'll watch some of Saturday Night Live this week, you know, Saturday Night Live. But the first episode was October 11th, 1975. Some of our beneficiaries saw that very first episode when it first aired, right? So this is like all of the counterculture stuff that we see.

 

Andy Gossett (10:31.437)

These guys had a really rich, interesting history, and they are on their smartphones over five hours a day, which to me is like, okay, well, these aren't guys that are not tech savvy. You know, they're, they use just, the percentage of folks that are on social media is somewhere around

 

Matt Feret (10:47.538)

the

 

Andy Gossett (10:59.917)

They somewhere around 65 plus over half. That's the number. I'm sorry. Let me just say that again, if you want to tag that for your editors. So, uh, today, over half of people 65 plus are active on social, at least one social media platform. So when we designed our website, we kept all of that in mind. We shop a lot on Amazon. Everybody shops on Amazon, right? Um, so when you're looking for things on Amazon, you have a like a,

 

a like button or a way to put it, you know, for future reference, right, right. All of that stuff. So we wanted to incorporate all of those things and allow folks to come in, say, okay, I think this looks good, but I'm not ready to make a decision. Let me, let me like this or market so I can find it easily again later. And so they, and then it asks them for the information that's important to them. Right. We can make it, we can recommend a plan.

 

Matt Feret (11:32.938)

Yeah. Rating rating system and save it for later and all that sort of stuff.

 

Andy Gossett (11:58.081)

with no information other than your zip code. Right? I mean, that's easy to do. I mean, there's plans in there and we say, well, this looks like a plan that has a lot of benefits, but we don't know if those benefits apply to you. So we give the options of, okay, put in the things that matter, right? And that would be my advice to anybody when they're shopping during this time period is put in the stuff that matters. If it matters what hospital you go to, then put that in.

 

If it matters which doc, if your doctor's like, I'm not changing doctors no matter what, then make sure you find that doctor, find them at the, you know, we give you the option to make sure that it's at the location where you want to see them because that can matter, right? Put in your medications. If, you know, if the medications are, you know, if, especially if you're using name brand medications, make sure you utilize those.

 

and put those in so that the plan can help you to sort which one really is actually the best for you.

 

Matt Feret (13:04.718)

Thank you. There's another thing I noticed about the website, which is in my experience, unique. And that is that you don't just have all the quote-unquote major brands. Right? You don't have, and I'm making this up, right? You don't have Whirlpool and Bosch dishwashers. And maybe what's another one? I don't know. Frigidaire? Right?

 

Andy Gossett (13:15.525)

That's great.

 

Andy Gossett (13:25.189)

Frigidaire, that works, yeah.

 

Matt Feret (13:26.318)

And everybody's got them. They're everywhere. All you got to do is price compare, right? But you actually get down into the little niche players, the little dishwasher companies from, you know, Japan on a particular island that you never heard of, but you like them, right? You end up going through, you know, individual state plans or regional plans that aren't really out there, even sometimes on their own, right? I mean, some of those, Andy, are like, they may have a website, but they're not, like it's hard to find.

 

Andy Gossett (13:32.569)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (13:48.483)

Right?

 

Andy Gossett (13:54.474)

Right, that's exactly right. Yep.

 

Matt Feret (13:56.202)

So you guys go through and actually do single state, small, regional, or even city based plans. Can you tell me why you do that? And I guess that makes it difficult for you, but also probably for the consumer a little bit.

 

Andy Gossett (14:08.249)

Yeah, it increases difficulty from a choosing standpoint sometimes because there are these niche players and they do have sometimes unique benefits. And so we go through a vetting process. We want to make sure anybody that we work with, that we're comfortable, that they're going to be able to help our beneficiaries, they're going to be there for them and those kinds of things. So that's very important to us. But you know, I'm just a few years away from.

 

retirement myself and I have children in three different parts of the country, which means I either have, or probably will have grandchildren in three different parts of the country. And so we want to give as many options as possible to the beneficiaries because everybody is unique. Like what I need in the health plan is not necessarily what you're going to need in the health plan or somebody else is going to need in a health plan. Some people need it to be much more portable than

 

Others, some like I'm not going anywhere. Some, I need it to be heavier on benefits like dental and vision and those kinds of things because I either A, know that I have work that needs to be done or I'm likely to have work that needs to be done. So we just, like, we don't wanna be the limiter of your choices by us just simply refusing to work with somebody. That's really the goal. And so we make them all available.

 

We get them, we provide them, we try to provide as much information as we have about them and all the star ratings and all of that, but also about which benefits that they have and then help you to choose because everybody, you know, even though we have 45, 60 plans in a given area, you know, sometimes that's covering an area where four, five, six thousand people are going to sign up.

 

in those plans and they're all individuals.

 

Matt Feret (16:11.486)

Yeah, yeah, it really is an individual selection. And I said that in my book at one point, or maybe it was a blog post. It's like, well, the frustrating thing is there might be 50 options in your area, just in Medicare Advantage. So we're not even talking about MedSupp yet, right? But also, so yeah, this concept of overchoice being frustrating, right? It's like, give me three. Let me pick from three or from five. And anything over that is kind of like, all right, I don't even know where to start. But at the same time, you're right, it can be individualized.

 

Andy Gossett (16:23.19)

Right, that sucks, yep.

 

Matt Feret (16:40.502)

I mean, I think about it that way. If there are 50 plans available, that's 50 opportunities for me to find the one that fits me the best. And if your website and your agents help people either find it on their own based upon your sorting and your selecting, or bail out and talk to somebody or chat with somebody, that's a pretty cool thing.

 

Andy Gossett (16:46.951)

One, right.

 

Andy Gossett (17:02.029)

Yeah, yeah, that's the biggest thing is again, we wanna simplify the choice process. That's why we give you the ability on the site, for whatever reason, somebody may have had a bad experience with a certain insurance carrier at some point, and they just like, I don't care what they're giving me, I don't want them, right? They've got anger, they've something there. So we give you the choice to say, here's the carriers that I'm interested in, and that's...

 

Matt Feret (17:21.974)

Mm-hmm. Right, right.

 

Andy Gossett (17:31.553)

you know, but we really encourage folks, if you can stay away from that, and, and let's, let's talk about how you need to use your plan. Like what do you need to get done? What do you know that you have coming up? If you, if you have a certain surgery, is there a hospital where you want to have that surgery? If that's the case, let's make sure we have a plan where you're not going to have any trouble getting to go to that hospital. That's, that's a really big, you know, that's really important.

 

the same thing with doctors. You know, if, if I see dr. Jones at, you know, one, two, three front street and, and I don't tell it, that's where I want to see him. And then I find out, Oh, you can still see dr. Jones, but now you have to go over to this way other side of town. That's, that's, that's a bad experience. Right. And so we want to make sure that what's important to you is how we help you identify which plans, whether you do that on the website or whether you do that.

 

with one of our advisors.

 

Matt Feret (18:33.986)

So walk me through. I get on your website, I start poking around, I enter my zip code in, I start poking around and I'm gonna bail out and I'm gonna call you. What happens when I pick the phone up, dial those digits, what happens?

 

Andy Gossett (18:36.953)

Uh huh.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Hahaha

 

Andy Gossett (18:48.909)

Yeah. So what happens is you'll be, you know, you'll hear some disclaimers in the space that we work in. You're going to hear a voice record. Yeah. They never go away. So you're going to, you're going to hear some recordings. We, you know, we tried very hard to answer the, all of the calls just as quickly as possible. And you know, there, I, we can talk about just a minute if you want about what

 

Matt Feret (18:56.59)

Oh, all the disclaimers and their new ones every year and the old ones never go away. Do they Andy? They just more

 

Andy Gossett (19:18.625)

like when, what time of the day to call, and those kinds of things, but you may get in a queue, but we're gonna, don't move. Yeah, so, yeah, so it's a general rule. We're in the annual election period right now, so let's talk about that. I know there'll be a few weeks left, there's a few weeks left in that. So the end of the week is a little bit, always a little bit better than the first of the week.

 

Matt Feret (19:21.107)

Oh, tell me. Yeah.

 

Matt Feret (19:25.354)

Well, hold on, hold on. Don't don't move. When should I call? Yeah, tell me that. Well, good time, bad time.

 

Andy Gossett (19:46.633)

like a Friday's better than a Monday. I have theories on why that is true, but I know that it is true because we see it year after year. I think all of the people that say, hey, I gotta get this taken care of. There's a certain group that are, you know, like I gotta get it done people and they get out there on Monday and there's still this other group. Okay, I'm gonna do it this week, I am. And then they kind of wait and they get to Friday. So Fridays are typically better than

 

Mondays, but then earlier in the day, like, like as early as you get up, we're, you know, we're open, I think seven AM Eastern time or something like that. Calling that like call right at the beginning of the day or when you get up and you're ready to go, like the earliest point, that's always better than the afternoon because you start getting all the time zones calling once you get into the afternoon hours.

 

Matt Feret (20:42.866)

Yeah, how about any super secret ones? I think I put this in the book too I think like the day after Thanksgiving is a one that nobody thinks is open, but they are

 

Andy Gossett (20:49.603)

Yes.

 

They are, yeah. The day after Thanksgiving is always good. The only concern I ever have with the day after Thanksgiving is we're starting, it's according to how close it is to December 7th. And you can start, you know, there's certain years where it's much closer to December 7th than others. This year, I think it's one of the longer stretches. I think we have nearly two full weeks after Thanksgiving until December 7th. So the day after is really, really good because again, a lot of folks are.

 

They just don't want to fool with it on the day. They're shopping and it's like their kids are there and their family's around.

 

Matt Feret (21:25.934)

Sure, well it's a pain.

 

Matt Feret (21:30.926)

Sure, it's a pain after the... Yeah, it's a pain. Most of the time it can be a pain, but definitely the day after you're full of trypto... What's it called? Tryptophan? Yeah, turkey tryptophan. And then of course, and then you and I both know, but I'll let you tell me. The last week, December 1st through the 7th, nuts, right?

 

Andy Gossett (21:39.817)

Yeah, turkey.

 

Andy Gossett (21:49.281)

Yeah, it's nuts. If you can, if you can have your choice made, uh, by then and, and just, you know, get ready for Christmas or holidays or whatever, you know, that you're going to be doing and stay away from that week, if at all possible, uh, just because there there's two things that happen and they're both unfortunate. One, everybody, you know, the folks they've delayed, right. But if there's a question that you need to ask your

 

doctor before you can make a decision. You know, your window's getting compressed and so now you're trying to get that answer and they've kind of gotten into holiday mode maybe a little bit too and you can't get the information you're needing and you're feeling all the stress of all of that. You know, so middle of November, the day after Thanksgiving is a really good time to do that. But yeah, I would definitely, definitely be working during that timeframe.

 

Matt Feret (22:48.422)

So fast forward to the, to like January 1st, just in normal times, give me, give me a couple of tips. Cause I do want to go back to the experience when I call you. So like just not annual election period, not AEP, right? Not October 15th through December 7th. If you're just calling up your turn in 65 or you're working past 65 and return and retiring, how far out should I call you and what day of the week and what time?

 

Andy Gossett (22:51.342)

Hmph.

 

Andy Gossett (22:56.292)

Sure.

 

Andy Gossett (23:00.267)

Mm-hmm.

 

Crap. Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (23:10.337)

Yeah, the days of the week and the times honestly don't matter nearly as much during that time of the year. Um, you know, because you're, we're not going to be overloaded with phone calls. So you should be able to get somebody fairly quickly. Um, but the, the being prepared for that phone call, I think is the biggest thing or, or if you go into our website, you know, the things you definitely want to know is, you know, we've talked about hospitals and doctors, what networks.

 

Matt Feret (23:17.311)

Okay.

 

Matt Feret (23:24.662)

Okay.

 

Andy Gossett (23:39.857)

But what benefits are important to you? And then what does your lifestyle look like? You know, are you gonna be traveling? If you travel a lot, that's gonna change the way I would probably guide you, as opposed to if you say, I don't ever go anywhere. Like I'm here, you know, I stay right here all the time. I never go anything. If there's other benefits that you feel like you need that you don't have the finances for, you know, things like gym memberships or...

 

dental benefits or vision, or if you don't have a way to get back and forth to the doctor, you need to let your advisor know that. Like I don't have a way to drive, you know, an Uber and gets expensive after a while. And so, you know, and I just think people don't think about that often enough. But really your choice of health insurance, especially in Medicare, is really has to be matched to your lifestyle. And that's where the power of what we do.

 

Matt Feret (24:22.967)

Right.

 

Andy Gossett (24:38.774)

really comes in, is we want to match it to your lifestyle. And so be prepared. Be, yes.

 

Matt Feret (24:42.994)

Makes sense. Be prepared and not just with your, you know, it's how you use it is what you're saying, right? Or where you think you're going to use it or yeah, yeah.

 

Andy Gossett (24:50.701)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just a perfect example, you know, in like Houston, there's a large medical center there, a cancer medical center that a lot of folks, MD Anderson, that a lot of folks wanna go to if they're in Houston, right? Well, that may matter a whole lot more to somebody. Maybe I've never had cancer, but I have a history of it in my family. So I wanna make sure that I can go there.

 

If I want to go there, I want to be able to go there, right? You need to know that. Even if you need to have that preference, you get a chance to change every year, right? For the Medicare Advantage plans, you get a chance to change, but maybe not for original Medicare and the Medicare supplement. Once there's a diagnosis in place, it gets harder to make those adjustments. And so you really want to think through.

 

how you're going to use your plan, however you prefer to pay for things, how budget conscious you are, all of those things have to matter. And it's just not a matter of just calling up saying, hey, give me the best plan in Houston, Texas, and this is it. There's no answer like that.

 

Matt Feret (26:02.697)

Yeah.

 

Matt Feret (26:08.385)

Yeah.

 

Matt Feret (26:11.85)

No, there isn't. It's all very individualized. All right, so I call you and I've done a little research online. I think I know what I want, but I'm talking to somebody in your organization and you're in charge of that excellence. So what excellence is going to occur after I pick that phone number, pick that phone up and dial out and talk to somebody. What's gonna happen?

 

Andy Gossett (26:16.118)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (26:24.325)

Hahaha

 

Andy Gossett (26:31.837)

So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to talk to you about kind of your family situation. Is it just you? Is there spouse may be involved or is there somebody else in the household that needs to be covered as well? We're going to determine your current situation. Like, are you possibly leaving a group plan? What kind of insurance have you been used to prior to that? We want to, we want to kind of figure that demographic information out. And, from a,

 

from a standpoint of, do you have somebody that typically helps you make these decisions? Like we really want, you know, we wanna make sure that if you say, yeah, my daughter or whoever normally helps me make these decisions, great. Would you like to have them on the phone with you before we talk about this? We wanna give you that opportunity to, if we have to set up a follow-up phone call to do that, then we will, right? But we wanna do that. So we kind of determine kind of the lay of the land and then we're gonna

 

We're gonna talk to you about all of the things really more health related and benefit related. We wanna know, do you need any kind of dental work done? Are you, what do you, how are you gonna use this plan? How do you get your eyes taken care of? I think I saw a thing that one of the number one complaints for seniors over 65 is that their teeth hurt, right? And some of it's just because they don't have.

 

any way to take care of that, right? So we wanna know like kind of where you're at in that process. We wanna know about your medications. We wanna know about your doctors and your hospitals, all of those kinds of things to do a solid needs assessment and like, this is how I'm gonna use my plan and what's most important to you, right? Which one of these things matter to you more than other things? Because sometimes there is a little bit of trade off, right? And then we're gonna come back and say, okay,

 

based on everything we talked about, here's the plan in your area that we think fits your situation the best, right? And we'll walk through what the plan is and how it works and who it's with and what doctors you can and can't see and all of those things that really matter. And then if you're ready to sign up, we're gonna get you to, we're gonna help you to

 

Andy Gossett (28:57.685)

enroll right there. We have multiple ways we can do that. You know, we can do it right over the phone. But one of the most popular options is where folks can actually, we can you can have the app, you'll have the application in front of you. But our advisor will stay on the phone with you let you fill it out. But answer any questions that you have. If you see any of that. Yeah, I don't know if you we send you a link.

 

Matt Feret (29:19.314)

What do you do? Like a, do you email it to me? Is that what it is?

 

Andy Gossett (29:24.749)

to the application through via email or we can do it over the phone as well. We found emails typically work better just because there's a lot of language in there and there's a lot of little things to read. You can't imagine all those disclaimers, right? Yep, we want you to be able to read those but they are, they do and so once you have everything filled out and we can make sure that you filled it out correctly so you don't get delays on the back end.

 

Matt Feret (29:35.943)

Oh, all those disclaimers again. Yeah. I mean, they're important. I'm just saying they get longer every year.

 

Andy Gossett (29:51.565)

you know, when it gets, as it's getting processed, we don't get those delays, then we can, you can hit enroll and you control all that. We can't enroll for you, you know, we can't hit the enroll button for you. We're just there to help you as you're filling it out. Some people don't want the help, right? Like we talked about earlier, like, no, I got it. I can do it. But then others are like, well, what does this mean? Or what does this say? You know, why is that? And we help you, we'll help you with that. Go through.

 

Matt Feret (30:19.918)

So if I get you on a call, let's say I call you, and then I kind of got an idea, maybe I want a Medicare Advantage, maybe I want a Medicare supplement with a Part D, or maybe I'm just doing a PDP, but just give me an average. Like if I talk to an advisor and they answer my questions and then they're like, do you want to enroll in this? We worked on this together. How long does that take to get to the point where usually a consumer is like, all right, I got it, but thanks for helping me narrow this down.

 

Andy Gossett (30:23.757)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (30:28.749)

Hmm?

 

Andy Gossett (30:36.408)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matt Feret (30:49.03)

I am ready to buy something. Let's just say it's on that first call, right? How long does this take? Does this take 20 minutes, an hour and 20, five hours? How long does this take?

 

Andy Gossett (30:52.633)

Hmm?

 

Andy Gossett (30:59.306)

Really good question. And based upon the variety of individuals we talked to, I could probably tell you all of the above, but the right answer, the typical answer is somewhere around 45 minutes to an hour typically to go through that entire process of selecting. And sometimes it's like how far do you have all your medications or how long is that medication?

 

Matt Feret (31:14.016)

Okay.

 

Matt Feret (31:26.689)

Yeah.

 

Andy Gossett (31:27.331)

We want to get them all and those names can sometimes be difficult to give over the phone. It just takes a minute to go through some of those.

 

Matt Feret (31:37.282)

So if I call in, have an hour ready. Don't expect this to be done in 15 minutes.

 

Andy Gossett (31:39.905)

Yes, yeah, that's correct. Yeah, if you have an hour ready, we'll try our best to give you 15 minutes of it back. So, and.

 

Matt Feret (31:49.787)

Perfect. So what if I'm not ready? What happens then? So if I'm like, alright, thanks, Andy. I appreciate you telling me all this stuff, but I'm gonna go home and talk to my husband or talk to my daughter or whatever that may be. What happens then? What does the rep say?

 

Andy Gossett (31:54.104)

Hmm?

 

Andy Gossett (31:57.836)

Hmm?

 

Andy Gossett (32:04.833)

Yeah, so first of all, we want you to, I got a cough, I'm sorry, let me.

 

Matt Feret (32:09.41)

That's all good.

 

Matt Feret (32:13.518)

I'll, I'll... Andy's drinking water, now he's putting the top back on. He's putting the water aside. He's ready now. He's ready.

 

Andy Gossett (32:18.17)

So now I'm ready. I am ready. So we absolutely wanna give beneficiaries the option, the ability to go and talk with whoever that they wanna talk to or need to talk to. The last thing in the world we wanna do is sign you up with a plan that you're not comfortable with. What we have found oftentimes is that sometimes I,

 

you know, I want to talk to them and actually I'm just uncomfortable for some reason. And if that's the case, we want to find out like, what is that? You know, but we can send you out the plan via email. Um, we can send a link out where you can, you can actually fill it out on yourself. You see the entire contract yourself and you don't even have to talk to us again. If you say, yeah, I want to do it. You can go right on there and just fill it out and hit enroll and you're good to go.

 

But if you say, no, I think I want to talk to him or I got some additional questions or I talked to my son, you can pick up the phone, call back in, and you'll have somebody that'll answer the phone, they'll offer to help you, but they'll also offer to get you back over to the person that you were originally talking with, which we really hope people enjoyed the experience enough with their original advisor that they want to talk to them again.

 

Matt Feret (33:32.298)

Well, that's no, that's a real thing, though, because.

 

Andy Gossett (33:49.11)

Okay.

 

Andy Gossett (34:00.217)

Right.

 

Matt Feret (34:03.909)

You might have to wait a little bit, but I might be able to go talk to that person again.

 

Andy Gossett (34:06.113)

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. If you want to talk to, if you're working with me and you want, and you want to talk to me again, like, Hey, just tell them to call me back or I'll hold. I'll go and hold our, the protocol is, is that one advisor will reach out to the other one and say, Hey, I've got so and so on the phone. Are you available to talk? And, uh, if they respond back and say, yeah, I'm, I can talk right now. They'll just transfer them over. But if they say, no, I'm on a call right now, I can't, I can't talk with them.

 

Then they'll come back and say, okay, they're busy, but they will call you back. And then they will get that information on to the original advisor and let them call them back.

 

Matt Feret (34:46.57)

If you had to guess, what's the percentage of people that call you, right? Go through that 45 minute or an hour long process and then purchase something versus someone who calls you goes through that 45 minutes or hour and goes, Hmm, let me, let me think about it and call you back. What's the percentage on either end?

 

Andy Gossett (34:51.502)

Hmm?

 

Andy Gossett (35:05.374)

It varies a lot. It gets a lot higher the closer than the closer than the like annual election period. But typically 15, 20% probably is the average percentage that'll purchase the first time that they call in. So it's fairly significant, but it can

 

Matt Feret (35:12.374)

Yeah, right.

 

Matt Feret (35:26.864)

Okay.

 

Andy Gossett (35:31.313)

It varies by, there is a seasonality to that as well.

 

Matt Feret (35:35.79)

sure end of the year right the end of the old part. Yep part B eligibility you got the three and three in the month of your birthday right and all of a sudden somebody's procrastinated and they got about two hours left the and that's going to be a different yeah. All right so most of them depending upon the time of the year it's fair to say most of your calls are second and or third calls them before somebody ends up.

 

Andy Gossett (35:37.725)

Right. End of the month.

 

Andy Gossett (35:49.45)

Right. Yeah, so.

 

Matt Feret (36:00.682)

you know, being comfortable enough. I mean, it sounds like Andy, you guys are investing hours potentially with, with people.

 

Andy Gossett (36:05.153)

Yeah, yes, we do. We invest a lot of time with them. But again, it really goes back to the core value that we talk about being customer-centric. Like, it takes how long it takes at the end of the day for you to become, because it's a big decision. It's not a decision that you can just make off the cuff. There's a lot of things that you need to be thinking about. We want you to be comfortable because it literally can affect.

 

your life. I mean, it's, it's a major, it's a major decision. So, you know, we, we want to, we, we want to invest the time that's necessary. And one of the other things that we do, Matt, we haven't really talked about it, but I think it's really important, um, is, um, as you know, uh, a lot of these plans are fairly rich. Uh, the Medicare advantage plans are fairly rich in features and benefits and things that they can use.

 

And one of the biggest complaints is, yeah, I have all this stuff, but I can't use it. I don't, I don't know what to do. Like I've got it. I've got this piece of paper. I got this card. I'm, you know, I need to do something with it and they don't know what to do. And we have an entire team that we dedicate because we don't want to just be your, um, your agency when you're signing up, we're, we're your folks, we're your people. And so we want to make sure that on the backside of that, if, if

 

hey, I've got this benefit. I've never had to use it before. I need a ride to my doctor. I don't know how to set this up. I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do or how I get it approved. Well, they, instead of calling the insurance carrier, which they have great folks there, no disparaging remarks there, but we feel like we have an investment with these beneficiaries because they're our beneficiaries. And so we'll actually get on the phone with you and call the insurance carrier with you.

 

to get that set up. If you have this dental benefit that I need to get this work done, but even though they say they take the plan, I've called this dentist and this dentist and this dentist and they all tell me they're full and I can't get through. Our team will get on the phone with you, make the phone calls, find you a dentist that you can actually go and see, book the appointment for you, set it up, make sure you know what you gotta do, the whole nine yards.

 

Andy Gossett (38:31.849)

So we'll do any of those kind of things for our beneficiaries throughout the year, at any time of the year they need that kind of help.

 

Matt Feret (38:40.814)

That's I've not heard of anyone else doing that. It may just be me, but that's pretty interesting. You reminded me. It's kind of like I got I got gas at Costco today. You know, I got the Costco visa and I popped it up there and it's like save whatever it is 4% on gas and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot like nobody's telling me to go use my car. You know what I mean. And it sounds like you guys are trying to not only do that. But then once you buy it, you're reaching back out and going, okay, you remember all those things we said here's how to here's how to activate them.

 

Andy Gossett (38:50.53)

Right?

 

Right? Yep. Yeah.

 

Andy Gossett (39:00.398)

Right?

 

Andy Gossett (39:07.489)

Right. Yep. This is how to activate them. Here's how to use them. I mean, we literally had a beneficiary calling that called in that was having really severe pain in her feet. And she had tried to get a ride. She needed to go see the doctor, but every time she tried to get a ride, it was never the right timeframe. You didn't call early enough. And...

 

And nobody was trying to be, it's just there's rules and she wasn't following the rules because she didn't understand exactly how to follow the rules. And so when she got on with one of our member advocates, when she got on with them, they were like, hold on, let's see if we can help and figured out, okay, they got the appointment set up with the doctor and then they made the phone call to the carrier and said, hey, we've got to help this lady. We got to get her there and here's what we need to do and got the ride set up.

 

for her to go and come so that she could go just take advantage of what it is that she'd signed up for in the first place.

 

Matt Feret (40:12.258)

nice. That's that's going the extra mile. Alright, so I'm gonna go back to the experience. I have I have a good one. Wait, excellence, right? I have an excellent experience, right, Andy? Excellent experience. And I buy a policy. What happens next?

 

Andy Gossett (40:22.29)

Excellent spirit, yes.

 

Uh-huh. So what happens next? One is a member of that member advocates team will reach out to you, introduce themselves, say, hey, this is what we're here for. Right? We'll have that. Right. Mm-hmm. And as long as you've given us permission to do so. But we're going to help you. Once you've signed up, we're going to help you go through the process. There's verifications with us, but then there's oftentimes

 

Matt Feret (40:38.191)

After I buy it, somebody's going to call me. All right.

 

Andy Gossett (40:55.629)

verifications with the with the carriers themselves. We have a variety of ways that we can do that. We can we can read all of that stuff to you if that's what you prefer. We have the where the IVRs, you know, where they transfer over they listen to a voice recording and they just have to say I agree at the end of it. And then we'll make sure that you have all your packets. We'll give you the numbers where you can contact us if you know, hey

 

I don't feel like I got my insurance card. I don't feel like I got my insurance pack and I didn't get the thing that I'm not comfortable. Or I had another question pop up. Something else occurred to me or my neighbor said something about it and I didn't know. We make that team, that team is much more easily available to reach out to just to help you understand what you've got. And so we make sure that team's very available to you.

 

Matt Feret (41:33.063)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matt Feret (41:53.43)

And so you get a certain amount of time after you buy a policy that sounds like that happens. What about six months later, two years later, how do you keep in touch or do you?

 

Andy Gossett (41:58.285)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (42:04.305)

We do it at whichever way the beneficiary wants us to keep in touch. You know, some, some don't want to receive emails or they don't want to get text messages or they don't want to get phone calls. Right. So we'll utilize whatever method that you're comfortable with and you're okay with us to follow up with you, to make sure you're getting the most out of the product that you, you have. And we do give you, you know, you.

 

always have the original advisor that you worked with. You do have their name, their extension, et cetera, as well. So we want to follow up with you. There are limitations, obviously, to what we can do. But we want to keep you advised on anything we see, any policy changes that we think you need to be notified of. So we're going to ask if we can email you or text you.

 

call you whichever way you would prefer.

 

Matt Feret (43:00.842)

Yep. And I assume since you gave your title at the beginning of this, I can also say, uh, I'm going to guess you probably listened to a lot of phone calls to listen for opportunities to improve as people say, right? So what's that experience like? What's that quality piece on the backend to make sure you are doing and your folks are doing exactly what the customers want.

 

Andy Gossett (43:09.194)

I do.

 

Yes.

 

Andy Gossett (43:20.649)

It, it, I, I've worked in this industry, as I told you, Matt, for a long time, we probably have the most extensive process on the back end to make sure that our beneficiaries are well taken care of. Uh, we have an entire team of folks that that's basically, I always hate to say that's all they do because that would be disrespectful to them. They do a lot of stuff, but their primary role is that they listen to our advisors.

 

own phone calls, they're independent of their supervisor. So they're giving outside feedback on what they're hearing. And that feedback can be everything from how does your tone sound? Even though you said the right words, did you say them in a, you know, was there an edginess to us? Was it respect to them? You know, here's your opportunity to improve. We also, we talked, we obviously

 

We have an entire compliance team, which is separate from our quality assurance team. The compliance team is making sure that all the fun stuff that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tell us we have to do, that we're doing all that stuff. But the quality assurance team is more focused on the experience of the beneficiary. Like, did we ask proper needs questions? Did we explore, did we, when we recommended a plan, did we recommend the right plan based upon

 

Matt Feret (44:33.078)

Yep.

 

Andy Gossett (44:50.229)

what we were hearing and what we were being told. Did we present it to them in a way that made sense, that didn't overwhelm them with additional information that they don't need to know? I mean, there's a thousand pieces of things, but when we came back, did we talk about the stuff that they said was important to them? Did we make sure that we covered those specific things? And how did we cover those? And so,

 

It's just an overall experience rating really is what it is. Like, did we respectfully handle this call in a way that's beneficial to both the beneficiary and to the advisor so that the advisor, we want the advisor to feel good about what they do too. And we want them to feel like, hey, I really helped this person. And that really matters a bunch.

 

to us and so.

 

Matt Feret (45:47.519)

And it matters to people who work in the space. And I can agree with you on that too. It's like, because if we weren't worried about taking care of Medicare beneficiaries, we'd probably find another line of work. And this stuff is hard. As every customer know or everybody on Medicare knows, it's hard. And yeah, we'd probably all be doing something else if we didn't really love helping people on Medicare.

 

Andy Gossett (45:57.057)

Right. It's hard.

 

Andy Gossett (46:08.849)

Yeah, and putting a smile on their face. We think it's beneficial when we're talking to our beneficiaries, if the conversation, if it sounds encouraging, it sounds uplifting, that they can draw a little energy from that because unfortunately we do talk to a lot of folks that don't have a lot of family friends that are around a bunch. And we...

 

We don't wanna, we wanna add to the good stuff in their life, not to the negative things.

 

Matt Feret (46:45.826)

So during, I mean, again, a lot of times during the year, especially during the last half of the year, there's a million and one things happening to people on Medicare. They're getting bombarded by phone calls, which I bet makes your job harder because when you're calling them back, they may be screening them, but they're getting, I mean, I'll just say robo calls.

 

Andy Gossett (46:54.41)

Mm-hmm. Sure.

 

Matt Feret (47:06.346)

uh, spam calls, whatever you want to call them. They got their in their mailboxes filled up every time they're watching something on TV, every third commercials, Medicare one. How would you suggest again, given your approach and e-health's approach to the business and you know, you are right. You've got call center reps, you've got um, you know, websites, you know, you got to do your own advertising as well. I mean, everybody does. You can't just, you know, sit on your hands on that. How would you advise

 

Andy Gossett (47:14.144)

Yes.

 

Andy Gossett (47:29.818)

Right.

 

Matt Feret (47:34.83)

customers or consumers to be discerning consumers? How would you advise them to go about sifting through all of the stuff coming at them and to find someone or an organization too that they can put their trust in?

 

Andy Gossett (47:48.705)

Yeah, I think the first thing that I would encourage is actually television commercials. And I say that because I think we've all seen the television commercials that we wish would go away. And they just keep running them over and over. And they're playing to that stereotype of the illiterate technologically.

 

Matt Feret (48:05.774)

Yes.

 

Andy Gossett (48:15.097)

backwards group that's just we found not to be true. And remember, like a television commercial is the most controlled arena that a insurance company has to show you how they're gonna treat you. If they can't do it well there, I have very little faith that they would be able to do it in less controlled settings. So there's.

 

Matt Feret (48:41.038)

So you're talking about the feeling, the feeling they're trying to emit, right? Are they, are they coming at you? Yeah. Are they coming at you? Yeah.

 

Andy Gossett (48:44.193)

Yeah, yeah, are they treating you with respect? Yeah, with respect. I think that's the biggest thing for me, Matt, is like, are they talking to me like I'm an idiot, or I'm illiterate, or are they talking to me like a human being, right? And giving me the opportunity to be able to choose. So are they treating me with respect in just the way that they're advertising to me? And then,

 

when you call in, all the website reviews, all of those kinds of things, those all matter. But I think we've all had to learn to be a little bit discerning. You go on Amazon or somewhere and you look at this one product and it'll have 45 five stars and then it'll have 22 one stars. And it was so experiential. But I think we know

 

We have some sense of that when we're looking on websites and consumer reviews and those kinds of things that we have to, but, but those things matter too. Like if I go on to buy a product and it has 78 reviews and 76 of them are one star, I'm buying something else.

 

Matt Feret (50:05.13)

Yeah, I always kind of think of those things as directionally, because if you're ticked off, you're way more likely to leave a negative review than if you're happy. You just may not leave a review. So it's even when this all started, and we've all gotten used to reviews and stars on products, Amazon or anyplace else, it's like there's still science behind it that says not everyone leaves a review. Ticked off people tend to leave really long, mad reviews.

 

Andy Gossett (50:08.217)

Right.

 

Yes.

 

Andy Gossett (50:20.289)

Right? Right.

 

Andy Gossett (50:31.353)

Right.

 

Matt Feret (50:32.622)

Right. Happy people may go, it was fine and give it a five star. Like it's not, you know, it's, they're humans. I mean, this isn't, you know, JD power or anything else, like doing a really kind of objective rating system. It's human feedback. And it's going to be rife with all those problems with human feedback.

 

Andy Gossett (50:41.793)

Right. Absolutely.

 

Andy Gossett (50:50.045)

What I look for in those reviews is I look for consistent things that are, like if everybody says this broke when after I used it for three days, if everybody leaves that comment or something similar, then it's like, okay, I'm gonna pay a whole lot more attention to it. So, so you need to do your homework that way. But honestly, whether it's on the website or whether you're dealing with an advisor over the phone and there's

 

As good as our website is, there's still some things I think that advisors have to help you with. We haven't really talked about like Medicare supplements and why that's particularly difficult to purchase when you're in an underwriting timeframe. You know, there's some things you just need to talk to an advisor and I think that's the best experience for a lot of folks is to have that, is how are they talking to you? Like if you feel uncomfortable, if you're feeling pressured, if you're feeling rushed,

 

If you're feeling that they're not even interested in anything that you're saying, don't, don't stay with that. I mean, don't, there's no reason for you to put up with that. Right. And, and the, and that's a feel thing. Like, are you listening? Are you hearing what I'm saying? Are you, are you asking me meaningful questions and responding appropriately? If the answer to that is not true, go somewhere else. That's, I mean, that's just.

 

don't, you don't, you're not beholden to them. There's plenty of other folks that'll sell you that same product because at the end of the day, the products are the same, we know that. You know, that nobody gets, you know, you don't get a e-health special product that we can sell, that nobody else can sell that has this extra benefit that nobody else has, that just doesn't exist in this space. So it's, how's your experience?

 

Matt Feret (52:16.846)

I don't know.

 

Matt Feret (52:27.254)

Right.

 

Matt Feret (52:41.322)

Yeah. It's all it. Yeah. How's your experience? How are you treated? I get it. Um, you said we didn't talk about it, but I do want to talk about it. So you've been given general feel, you know, we, we walked through an application piece. We've walked through, uh, you know, some of the advertising pieces, what to look out for, how you think about before you, you know, start on the phone or start on a website or start with a person. Like, how are you going to use it? Then do your own homework, bring your homework, right?

 

Andy Gossett (52:46.093)

Yep.

 

Matt Feret (53:08.766)

I put some checklists on my website, right? And one of those is like, write this stuff down, like have this here so that you can not just get on the phone and be like, I need Medicare. And someone goes, well, I have some questions. And then you gotta get run in the medicine cabinet or your countertop. So do that, that's good stuff. We've covered a lot of that. You talked about Medicare Advantage with a lot of the other different things and that's a, it just crossed the 50% threshold.

 

Andy Gossett (53:13.901)

Right? Right.

 

Andy Gossett (53:19.765)

Right.

 

Andy Gossett (53:36.419)

Right?

 

Matt Feret (53:36.994)

is that more than 50% of all Medicare eligibility now have a Medicare Advantage plan. But that still leaves 49%, 47% of the folks out there that aren't on a Medicare Advantage plan. And I know Medicare Advantage gets all the advertising and all the media and all that stuff around it. Talk about the other ways to get it. Like, so I say in my book, right? Bear with Medicare is just original Medicare in part D. And I also say in the book, it's fine.

 

Andy Gossett (53:48.708)

Right.

 

Matt Feret (54:05.09)

Probably some better options out there for you. The second one is a Medicare supplement plus a Medicare party And then the third one is Medicare advantage So talk about those first two the I have part D only and I'm fine with it or I want a Medicare supplement There are different Nuances and timing and all sorts of stuff with those other two options. Talk about how you guys handle those things

 

Andy Gossett (54:21.858)

Yeah.

 

Andy Gossett (54:27.489)

Yeah, so the Part D only option, I'm risk averse. And so I would never encourage anybody to go just to Part D only option. I say never. It would be hard for me to imagine the situation where I think that would be the right way. And the reason being, I've heard you talk about the MOOP or the maximum out of pocket.

 

And original Medicare with a Part D only plan really has no move. There is no move. You know, it just, however much you, you pay, you're going to be responsible for certain percentage of that. And it can get into the thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars pretty quickly. Uh, so, so it's just, it's not, that's not a viable option in my mind, uh, for folks and even, even people that are like independently wealthy, like you didn't.

 

work all of your life to give that money to a hospital or to a medical center somewhere. So

 

Matt Feret (55:31.978)

Well, you know, from financial protection, there are products out there that can stop that are pretty reasonable. That's the other thing. It's like not only yes, it works. It's been around forever. It works just fine. But there is no move. And you do pay, you know, 20 percent or a copay. And by the way, it can run out. A lot of people don't know that. But if you're in the hospital for a very long time, it can run out. And so why would you put yourself in there for, you know?

 

Andy Gossett (55:36.973)

Right.

 

Andy Gossett (55:50.061)

Right. It can run out. Yep.

 

Matt Feret (55:59.246)

zero dollars on a Medicare Advantage plan or a couple hundred bucks a month. Like it's just, you can do it. People do it. It's fine. It's been working for a long time, but there are other ways to protect yourself that aren't, you know, astronomically high from a monthly premium standpoint.

 

Andy Gossett (56:13.857)

Right, right. So the Part D only option is just something I just couldn't recommend in good conscience at any time. And then there are those that, then there's the Medicare supplement. And I think the biggest issue that people have when they're looking at Medicare supplements is they wanna compare them to Medicare Advantage plans, which is not really a fair comparison because they're a secondary insurance, whereas original Medicare remains your...

 

Matt Feret (56:26.104)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (56:42.373)

primary insurance. So the right comparison for Medicare Advantage plans is against Original Medicare. And that is the standard that Medicare Advantage plans have to meet, is Original Medicare, that their coverage levels are the same or better than Original Medicare as far as benefits and those kinds of things. So the supplements are commonly known as Medigap policies and they're exactly that. They're to handle that.

 

Matt Feret (57:00.578)

Mm-hmm.

 

Andy Gossett (57:10.909)

maximum out of pocket that Medicare, original Medicare has that it doesn't have. It doesn't have a maximum out of pocket. So the gaps are designed to cover those copays, those deductibles and those kinds of things. And so oftentimes, especially, you know, when somebody's just turning 65, you know, they can find plans that will reduce their total medical out of pocket coverage. It's a plan G. I know you're familiar with that. Plan G.

 

to just whatever the Medicare deductible is for that given year. And that's it. They pay that. That is their maximum amount of pocket is that number right there. And they basically can go to the doctor one time or a hundred times or spend one day in the hospital or 40 days in the hospital. And they have that one bill. So for people that are budget conscious, that are on a fixed income, they like knowing, you know, I can pay that, that premium. And

 

That's it, that's all I've got. So that makes a lot more sense for them. And it gets away from the networks, the PPO, the HMO, you become available, you know, original Medicare itself becomes your network, which, you know, according to which number you look at, it's 95, 97, 99%. I don't know, I've seen all those numbers, but I know it's very hard to find a doctor.

 

Matt Feret (58:16.338)

away from that one. Yeah, that's a big thing.

 

Andy Gossett (58:39.901)

that our hospital or original Medicare doesn't work.

 

Matt Feret (58:45.034)

Yeah, and I guess I have to imagine when people first call you. I mean, I have to think you get two types of calls. The first one is, hey, I have something already and I'm looking for something different. And then you got probably the folks that are turning 65 or eligible due to disability or retired at whatever age 70. They just now are getting on it.

 

Andy Gossett (58:52.813)

Hmm? Yep.

 

Andy Gossett (59:04.184)

Right.

 

Matt Feret (59:05.638)

And you go through all three, you go through two of the three. I mean, do you do that discovery upfront? Like, what are you thinking? Like you've, you've probably before you called me, you probably had an idea, you know, your, your buddy's got some way you don't like this. Like, uh, do you start with that kind of thing? Like, what are you thinking?

 

Andy Gossett (59:20.381)

Yeah, so the way we start with that, buddies are particularly bad at, unless your lifestyle is, that's a particularly bad way to go about it oftentimes, but because they're gonna tell you what's best for them oftentimes, which is not always what's best for you, but the things we really want to know about is one, what have you been used to in your life? Like are you

 

Matt Feret (59:25.955)

Ha!

 

Matt Feret (59:31.03)

Heh heh.

 

Andy Gossett (59:48.345)

Folks really love HMOs. They'll tell you that. Others are there, if you even say the word HMO to me, I'm hanging up the phone right now. So we wanna know kind of what covers do you have right now. But then we also wanna know what does retirement look like for you? Like when you're retired, are you gonna be traveling?

 

Matt Feret (01:00:00.632)

All right.

 

Andy Gossett (01:00:14.909)

Are you gonna, you know, do you live half a year in New York and do you live half a year in Florida? That's gonna change the way we advise you to look at your healthcare coverage. Do you have family that you visit out of state, especially, and it doesn't have to be that you've been really out of state. Sometimes it's just out of county. Do you travel and stay for extended periods of time away from your home? And so that's all. So what we feel like we need you to tell.

 

tell us how you're gonna use it, and then we're gonna say, okay, based upon what we're hearing, here's the three options, but we feel like this one is the one that really fits you, fits you the best.

 

Matt Feret (01:00:55.714)

Gotcha.

 

Andy Gossett (01:01:16.665)

Sure, okay.

 

Matt Feret (01:01:30.006)

poke around and click around to your heart's content. And eventually, if you call somebody or chat with somebody, what that experience is gonna be like. You know, it can happen in one call, it can take three or even more. If you want your family member or whatever, daughter on or neighbor or that buddy we just talked about to listen in, you can handle all that too. What questions about the way you do business and the way e-health does business and Medicare in general?

 

What questions did I not ask that I should have?

 

Andy Gossett (01:02:00.973)

Yeah, the thing I would really focus on is when we're talking about these beneficiaries, is why do we care so much about the beneficiaries? Is it a bottom line thing? Is it a, like, that's just the way you do it so that you're, because all of the things we do have a positive benefit to us.

 

you know, people that are happy with our services, they tend to stay with us longer and all those things are true. But what is the core motivation behind what we do? And we talked a little bit about our founder, you know, not wanting people to be without insurance and being in that spot again and to make this really simple for them. But the core motivation for what we do on a day to day basis is that

 

We see our beneficiaries as human beings. That they have real lives, they've done real things. You know, they've been at Woodstock, they've been in the counter-culture revolution, they've served, some of them have served in our military, some of them have served in various ways, they've lived very interesting lives. And we believe that they should be treated with respect and dignity.

 

At all times and in all parts of this process. And that's what motivates us to do what we do. And even if we have our stumbles and our bumbles, that's what we're trying, we're human beings, right? But our core motivation is that we really, really want our beneficiaries to have a very good experience where they feel comfortable with what they've chosen for their healthcare, and they're very comfortable with what they've done.

 

And they can, when they laid out at night, they can go to sleep and not have to be worried about how am I gonna pay for that if something comes up.

 

Matt Feret (01:04:04.367)

Andy, thank you.

 

Andy Gossett (01:04:05.529)

Thank you. It was awesome. I hope I did well for you, Matt. Absolutely. So we'll look forward. Let me know if you need anything else from me.

 

Matt Feret (01:04:10.035)

Oh buddy. Yeah, of course. It was a great talk. Thanks very much, Andy.