Thanks to Bonnie Burns at California Health Advocates for taking my call and explaining the retiree medicare supplemental plan that is currently provided by my previous employer and the Employer Group Medicare Advantage Plan that is being offered to retirees for the coming year. Bonnie’s description of how these plans work and our discussion of their pro’s and con’s was very helpful and appreciated.

Kudos to Bonnie Burns from California Health Advocates on the August 23, 2021 post on “CalPERS [Long-term Care Insurance] Settlement & Premium Increase.” As a class member of the settlement, I have expended considerable effort to sort out a vast amount of confusing and conflicting information.

The article by Ms. Burns is unbiased, clear and factual.  The terms of the settlement are concisely summarized, and I was especially impressed by the clarification on the premium increase.  The writeup on “The Number of Years of Coverage”,  “Premium Increase ~ Making Changes to Your CalPERS Coverage” and “Negotiation Tools And The Next Premium Increase” dovetails my own painstaking research on these topics. The article has helped me in making a confident decision on the settlement.  Thank you!

Spoke to Bonnie Burns today re: CalPERS Long Term Care program and the class action lawsuit. I was seeking an objective but knowledgeable expert about this particular program and she fit the bill.  She offered some options to think about and possible “red flags” to look for as we explore a possible replacement policy. 

She returned my call in less than 24 hours, which was very impressive since I’ve been leaving messages at other places and it would take days to 2 weeks to get a call back.

I’m glad that I found the HICAP website as it will be a good future resource as we approach Medicare age in 3 years.

I would like to express my gratitude to California Health Advocates (CHA), Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP), for always being responsive to our requests for assistance.  They are miracle workers when it comes to eliminating barriers to access to Medicare benefits.

Your presentation was excellent. One of the attendees was the resident you helped with the Covid testing bill.  It is absolutely wonderful what you all do.  It is so shocking the amount of fraud going on.  Thanks for the help!

Thank you for this very clear summation of the CalPERS LTC quagmire I only wish I found it sooner. 
So many of us have been searching for a straight answer for so long. Who knew you were here for us.

I have a confusing situation and Bonnie Burns was very clear about what steps I need to take with Medicare should my status of being furloughed turn into one of being laid off.  (I currently have group health insurance with a large organization.)

During these coronavirus times, there are so many uncertainties and Bonnie was most informative on this subject, so I am grateful.

I am writing this letter because I have been struggling with my aging parents health care. Trying to navigate through Medicare , Medical, and secondary insurances , has been the most difficult thing to deal with. Frankly, it is overwhelming and confusing. In trying to do what’s best for my parents health care I made bad decisions and mistakes. I was given the number to HICAP/PASSAGES and was blessed to speak with Tatiana Fassieux. Her expertise , knowledge and Ability to explain to me what to do was an incredible, emotional relief.

HICAP/PASSAGES Organization provides a necessary service. Tatiana Fassieux and Sandy Morales of California Health Advocates/SMP, their ability to navigate through Medicare and help our elderly population is a necessity. I do not know how to emphasize how important this organization is. I was also provided with valuable resource numbers to further help me care for my elderly parents.

HICAP/PASSAGES Organization, Tatiana Fassieux and Sandy Morales of California Health Advocates/SMP have made my parents whole and I am forever grateful.

I am writing this letter because I have been struggling with my aging parents health care. Trying to navigate through Medicare , Medical, and secondary insurances , has been the most difficult thing to deal with. Frankly, it is overwhelming and confusing. In trying to do what’s best for my parents health care I made bad decisions and mistakes. I was given the number to HICAP/PASSAGES and was blessed to speak with Tatiana Fassieux. Her expertise , knowledge and Ability to explain to me what to do was an incredible , emotional relief. HICAP/PASSAGES Organization provides a necessary service. Tatiana Fassieux and Sandy Morales’ ability to navigate through Medicare and help our elderly population is a necessity. I do not know how to emphasize how important this organization is. I was also provided with valuable resource numbers to further help me care for my elderly parents. HICAP/PASSAGES Organization, Tatiana Fassieux and Sandy Morales, who are both also with CHA and SMP, have made my parents whole and I am forever grateful.

“I am 72 years old, receiving SSB as my sole source of income. Starting June 2018, I will be receiving Medicare benefits, in addition to basic Medical coverage. Your website provided me with all the necessary information I needed, in order to understand how Medicare-Medical work together to maximize my benefits. Thank you so much…!!!”

“I wish to take this opportunity to express a heartfelt thank you for your fine work through your office and Pam Brown’s that enabled me to retrieve my Medicare insurance that was inadvertently canceled may my insurer in error. Just received my medical card today. We are so relieved. A lovely lady with Medicare gave me the HICAP number and through another very nice lady (Muriel Smalheiser) I was able to speak with Pam who contacted you at California Health Advocates. I am so grateful to all of you, as my wife who is very ill battling a rare cancer, as sick as she was, tried to assist me in my application during the open conversion period, would have been disastrous for me not to have coverage. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your caring and your fine work.”

“California Health Advocates provided tremendous assistance to me as I assisted my 93 year old father to change his medicare coverage.  It was a cumbersome process for me and CHA made prompt insurance contacts for me so that I could complete the application process within the deadline. They also overcame obstacles to my father getting the coverage he was entitled to.  In addition, the training and technical assistance CHA provides to HICAP is invaluable.”  

“In January, my doctor sent a claim to Medicare for a walking boot which I needed for a medical condition. Medicare denied the claim even though the boot was a covered item. Since the doctor was not paid, he insisted that I pay $284.85 out of pocket, which I paid, however I was sure this was not a fair practice.

I brought my case to the California Senior Medicare Patrol and Sandy Morales, Complex Case Manager, worked on the issue for several months. She was an intermediary between Medicare and my doctor and after several conversations, she was able to convince the doctor to re-submit the claim for the boot, along with the appropriate documentation indicating medical necessity.

Bottom line: in September, Medicare paid the doctor for the valid claim and the doctor reimbursed me for the full $284.85.

Thank you Sandy and Senior Medicare Patrol for being such a strong advocate for a grateful Medicare beneficiary.”

“Thank you for listening to me…. I will always be grateful that you cared and also that you have helped a lot of other people when you worked so hard to change the injustice that was done to a lot of our seniors.”

“On behalf of the City of Brea and the Community Services Department, I would like to extend a sincere thank you for providing the SilverSneakers® members with a wonderful presentation on Medicare Fraud and Prevention. It was informative and eye-opening and seemed to spark thought provoking questions from the group.”

“Your passion and concern for this issue (Medicare Fraud and Abuse) is evident and very effective in communicating the need for vigilance among seniors.”

“We feel so lucky to have found the services of CHA. Without your advocacy efforts, we would have just accepted the denial from my long-term care insurance company. Because of your efforts, we received $9,386.87. Bonnie, we are so thankful there are people like you in this crazy world of health care. It shouldn’t be this hard to provide care for our elderly, especially when an insurance policy has been purchased. I have shared our experience with my peers, friends and family. I highly recommend CHA and their advocacy services.”

“Thank you for providing an outstanding training to our counselors and staff on Medicare fraud and abuse. Your stories and discussion on what’s happening out there in the world of crimes against Medicare really opened our counselors’ eyes to what is happening in our own backyard and gave them a greater appreciation for the amazing work being done by the Senior Medicare Patrol!”

“Thank you again for being our guest speaker…. The information you gave regarding Medicare fraud was both enlightening and frightening. We are all aware of the fraud perpetuated by unscrupulous parties, but I had no idea of the scope and organization the fraud; especially involving the ethnic communities. I would like to call on you to speak at other community meetings; I will be in touch!”

“The CHA Fact Sheets are invaluable; I do not know what we would do without them! It would be impossible to counsel and reach the population that we do, if the fact sheets were not available. They provide us with a template in which we base all our sessions on, and with them, we can confidently say to the client that we are providing them with accurate and detailed information, which will guide them into making a decision that is appropriate for them. They are the best thing next to sliced bread!”

“We consider the CHA Fact Sheets a staple, not only of of our service delivery, but also of our new-counselor training. The Fact Sheets are well-written, clear and complete, and a very helpful tool when explaining Medicare’s complex features to beneficiaries. The CHA Fact Sheets are updated in a timely manner, too, making their website the go-to-resource for accurate information.”

“CHA’s fact sheets are an indispensable component to our volunteer training and resource reference material. Because they are so well written and easy to understand, we give them to our clients as back up to our counseling sessions. We also display a variety of fact sheets at the various community outreach events that we participate in. We can always rely on CHA fact sheets to be up-to-date and accurate.”

“New to Medicare clients are often quite articulate and organized but overwhelmed with all the advertising material they receive in the mail. When I show them the fact sheets, it’s as if the heavens opened up. The charts and fact sheets are wonderful tools that help clarify and make sense of all the complicated details surrounding Medicare.”

“I want to compliment your organization on the quality of the fact sheets and informational materials on your website. I think they are among the most accurate and clearly written materials on Medicare (and Medi-Cal) available anywhere.”

“For the record, the rave reviews of your presentation which started immediately after you left, continued through the lunch hour. . . and again at this week’s meeting…. On behalf of “The View” (and myself), thank you again for your thought-provoking and informative presentation.”

“Your website is a breath of fresh air…It is very well organized, written, and very helpful. It is also pleasing to the eye when navigating through it. You organized a complicated set of information which the readers can sift through easily and learn. Thank you so much for the wonderful website.”

“I just wanted to say thank you for all you do and for all that CHA helps us with. We function much better as an organization knowing we have you and all of the CHA team for support and especially resources.”

California Health Advocates (CHA) is an invaluable resource for our Contra Costa HICAP (SHIP) program. This organization supports HICAP statewide in numerous ways. We have used CHA for training new volunteer counselors, for providing our first-line resource materials primarily through their fantastic fact sheets, and for very important technical research as they look up applicable federal governmental regulations about very complicated matters. This latter service is greatly appreciated because those of us who work in the field are dealing with the immediate needs of clients and don’t have the time to pore through government regulations.

“You and your organization are true warriors, and I feel privileged to have witnessed the [successful fraud] fight! …Everyone involved in this fight was just amazing! Now we tell everyone we know to watch out for fraud, and if they are a victim, call SMP!”

“The CHA fact sheets are an invaluable tool for our HICAP in terms of training both new and experienced volunteers and staff, including agency staff from other programs, on a variety of topics related to Medicare and long-term care insurance. We also utilize these fact sheets when providing in-service trainings to other agencies and providers serving older adults and people with disabilities. In addition, our counselors rely on them when providing one-on-one counseling to Medicare beneficiaries or to persons who hold or are interested in long-term care insurance policies. Counselors use the fact sheets to help beneficiaries understand their options in specific circumstances, such as those who may be eligible for limited income programs, veterans, and/or those who are still working and have other coverage. In a typical year, we can approximate that we use somewhere between 10,000-20,000 of the CHA fact sheets. These fact sheets are usually the first materials to be updated when there are changes that need to be made and they are absolutely critical in helping our HICAP to fulfill our mission of educating and providing advocacy to Medicare beneficiaries. Many thanks for all that you do!”

“…I just want to say thank you for all the work that California Health Advocates does to stop letting long-term care insurance companies write policies that are not fair to the public. If I had not found Bonnie Burns… I would have given up a long time ago. I am so thankful.”

“Thank you for coming to our class and sharing your experience with Medicare fraud. The students shared they really appreciated all you shared with them. I believe it is so important for students to get the big picture and have the correct information on current aging issues. You got them off to a good start. Thank you, again, for generously sharing your time with our students.”

“Thank you for your 2011 TrOOP info! If only I had looked at your website first!… I now have a very clear explanation of what costs count toward TrOOP, thanks to your website info. Perhaps the industry will need to change the term ‘True Out of Pocket’ to avoid confusion. Thank you!”

“I just viewed your SMP web page and I must say it is very impressive. I really enjoyed the site and spent much time (3 hours this evening to be exact) learning. It is so good that I will have my English speaking volunteers use it as a training tool. You should receive recognition for such an ‘impressive’ web page!“

“Wow! We love your presentation and personality! Thank you for coming to class and sharing your expertise on Medicare Fraud and HICAP! The students have shared with me that you have been their favorite speaker so far! They loved your stories and enthusiasm! It’s so good that the students and myself are seeing the big picture and the interrelatedness of programs. You gave us all something to think about. Thanks again for generously sharing your time with our students!”