LEMON DROP | Making Medicare Simple with Chapter CEO Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz

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The Don Lemon Show 24 min 2 speakers 6 chapters transcribed 2 months ago
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Don Lemon 0:14
Look, there's a lot going on in the country right now, especially with the government shutdown and everything going on around healthcare. Medicare has become a big talking point. And finally, there's a company that wants to solve that issue, and it is called Chapter. And the CEO of Chapter, Coby Blumenfeld, joins us now. Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm doing well. This is the right time people need your company. So how did you start this company? It's called Chapter. Chapter. How did you start it? Or what?
Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz 0:44
I started the company about six years ago after seeing my parents struggle with the Medicare process. They had been working with a local Medicare broker and received terrible advice. Unfortunately, that had pretty significant consequences. My mom now has late enrollment penalties that she has to pay in perpetuity for the rest of her life. And they were paying a couple hundred dollars per month more than they needed to. And I didn't come from a healthcare background. I didn't come from a Medicare background. But I just thought that the way that people deal with Medicare really makes no sense and is really unfortunate because people are paying Medicare payroll taxes their entire lives. Like we're paying into the system.
Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz 1:23
It's not even a welfare program. It's a program we've all paid into and people should get the best coverage out of that. And unfortunately, the system is not set up to support seniors today.
Don Lemon 1:33
You know, it's what's interesting to me is that people don't people think now, like, well, I have this great health care, I'm on whatever, I'm with this company, I'm with that company, and I retired and whatever. But they don't know that there are changes now. And they may not be able to get the doctor that they trusted, and all sorts of changes that you may not be aware of, that's going to affect you who you go to, and possibly the cost of your premiums.
Yeah.
Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz 1:59
There are significant changes happening this year. There have been changes happening the past couple of years, but they're even more acute this year, where a lot of insurance carriers are more focused on profitability rather than growth, which means that they're pulling back some of their benefits. They're moving more and more doctors out of network. And they're also kicking people off plans. United, for example, kicked 600,000 people off of their Medicare plans this year. And so for those people, they're getting lots of different ads and notices about their doctors being in network or out of network, and they're just very confused. And a lot of people don't know what to do with it. And it's even more complicated because even just the simple question of, is my doctor in network for a given Medicare plan, is actually a very hard question to answer from a data perspective.
Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz 2:40
Technologically, it's very hard to answer. So we spend a ton of time and energy. I've recruited what I think is the best data and software team in the country to solve this problem. But it's not a trivial thing that you can just look up on the internet and figure out, unfortunately.
Don Lemon 2:54
It is very complicated.

How did Chapter start after Cobi saw his parents struggle with Medicare?

Don Lemon 2:55
Because as I say in one of the ads, we do ads for a chapter there, our health partner here at the Don Lemon Show. I have sat with my mother, who is a senior. She is retired. And just with the paperwork and everything and trying to figure it all out. And you guys can cut through that. And you don't charge the person who's calling? That's totally fair. Wait, what's in it? Come on. Nothing is for free.
Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz 3:20
Yeah, it's totally free. The way that we're able to run a business and build a business on that is we as a company take commissions from insurance carriers. But really importantly, we do not let those commissions influence in any way how we do our Medicare plan recommendations. So to be very specific, Chapter as a company earns commissions, but all of Chapter's employees and team, our Medicare advisors, have no idea which companies pay Chapter, which companies don't, and if there's a difference in payment. So our Medicare advisors are incentivized only to help people.

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