Interview with Ronnie Ragan
Turning 65 hands you a decision most people make once, under time pressure, from a stack of mail. Ronnie Ragan runs a Medicare brokerage in Jackson, and in this episode he walks Dr. Mike Chua through Original Medicare, supplements, and Medicare Advantage, including the trade-offs that only show up later when you need therapy.
Friendly and attentive to the patient all around just kind I'm very satisfied with the work they all do
What Ronnie Ragan covered.
Ronnie Ragan runs a full-service Medicare brokerage that has been in business close to twelve years, with agents working across West Tennessee and his own desk in Jackson. He opened with family rather than insurance: his wife Brandy, high school sweethearts, together thirty six years and married thirty, five grown children. It set the tone for the rest of it, which was less a product pitch than a man explaining a system he clearly finds badly explained.
He started where everyone starts. Original Medicare, Parts A and B, is what you go onto at 65, and enrollment happens roughly three months before the birthday, with the premium typically coming out of Social Security. He flagged the Part A deductible per benefit period as the thing people do not realize is there until a hospital stay makes it real. From there he laid out the two directions people go. A supplement, such as Plan G or Plan N, which he called a genuinely excellent choice and also an expensive one, with Plan N adding co-pays for doctor visits. Or Medicare Advantage, Part C, where local, regional and national plans exist, some at zero premium with a drug plan bundled in, and the cost shows up instead as co-pays, managed networks and prior approval.
His position throughout was that there is a time and a place for both, and that the right answer depends on age, finances and how you actually live. He also noted that supplement carriers have pulled back some plans, which has created guaranteed-issue situations for certain seniors. Specific premiums quoted during the episode have been left off this page on purpose, because those figures move every year and a stale number is worse than none.
The part that matters most to our patients came from Dr. Chua. Physical therapy is not a one-visit expense. It is two to three visits a week for several weeks, and what each of those visits costs you depends entirely on which plan you picked years earlier. He told a story about a patient whose Medicare Advantage plan retroactively denied therapy that had already been delivered. Ronnie Ragan's framing for his own work was simple: they are advising rather than selling, and they want to be your advisor for life.
How to reach Senior Insurance Advisors in Tennessee.
The Jackson office is at 367 North Parkway, Suite 5, and the number given on air was 731-410-7700. They run free Medicare classes every other Wednesday at 1pm, about ninety minutes long, usually around twenty people, and he was clear that no enrollment is asked for at them. Senior Insurance Advisors is an independent business with no financial relationship to GeriHab, and nothing here is insurance advice from us. Call them, or call your own broker, before your plan year locks.
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