Becerra enjoys post-retirement job with seniors

When you love to work and serve, retirement might not make sense. Frank Becerra of Highland has retired from one career, but is enjoying another role, one that allows him to interact with seniors on a regular basis as a transportation driver for Residences at Deer Creek Senior Living in Schererville.

Becerra was raised in East Chicago in a devout Catholic family of nine children. His religious upbringing led him on a path to the priesthood. He studied with Scared Heart Seminary for several years to be a Catholic priest.

“I was ready to take my first vows and that’s when I decided to ask for a sabbatical,” he said. “I realized I couldn’t go on without having my own child.”

Having helped raise his siblings, he knew that being a parent was something he wanted and it turned his life in a different direction.

“To this day I feel if I had been allowed to marry I would have been ordained, but it was not to be in my lifetime,” he added.

Instead of becoming a priest, he went into banking, working his way up to a role as vice president of lending, retail and consumer loans with First Midwest Bank (now Old National Bank). At the time of his retirement he had spent a total of 42 years with the banking institution.

Throughout his career, customer service was a big focus and he valued making personal connections with individuals, which is something that has served him well in his job at Residences of Deer Creek. He’s making a difference in many ways for those he serves.

In addition to driving, Becerra saw a need in connecting with older residents who had stories to tell. He started helping the serving staff when it came to meal time, which gave him an opportunity to lend a hand to staff and also lend an ear to residents. He had prior experience as a country club manager, so he was familiar with dining services.

Whether he’s driving the bus or helping in the busy dining room, he takes time to make sure those he’s dealing with feel heard and appreciated. It’s heartwarming for both parties.

“I’m making amazing relationships with the people who live there,” said Becerra. He is also a part-time patient advocate at Franciscan Hospital.

In his role at the bank, he served many roles and at different locations, which included being a mortgage originator and branch manager, but one of the highlights of his career was meeting his wife, Lupe, at work. The two have now been married for 26 years. They have adult daughters and now have four grandchildren that they enjoy spending time with. The couple also has three dogs and have been active members in their parish, Our Lady of Grace.

S.O.S. - Speaking Of Seniors — Too complicated for most seniors

Editor’s note — Woodrow Wilcox is the senior medical bill case worker at Senior Care Insurance Services in Merrillville. He has saved clients of that firm over $3 million by correcting medical bill problems. Also, Wilcox wrote the book “SOLVING MEDICARE PROBLEM$,” which is available through book stores and online.

continue to get bills like this that Medicare should, but wouldn’t, cover.

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A client brought medical bill papers to our Schererville office in the shopping center at the northeast corner of US 30 and US 41. That office copied the papers and sent them to me. I reviewed the papers and immediately knew it would be a complicated case. I phoned the client to come to my office to work with me.

I needed the client with me to give permission for me to speak and question for the client on every phone call to comply with federal privacy protection law. The bill and

Medicare Summary Notice about the bill showed me that the client’s Medicare file was fouled with false information. The bill was for $975 because Medicare refused to pay anything on it. Until the Medicare file got fixed, our client would

We phoned two offices of Medicare to try to fix the problem. But we had to phone an insurance company and a chiropractor’s office to pursue fixing the Medicare record. The problem was that the insurance company never told Medicare that our client had finished treatment for a car accident in 2021. When our client got treatment in 2023, Medicare refused to pay anything because it thought that the car accident matter never had been settled. The insurance company never got a final report from the doctor so that it could close its file and notify Medicare to end the car insurance matter.

I know what happened. The insurance company sent money to our client instead of directly to the chiropractor. The chiropractor’s office did not know that it was supposed to notify the insurance company of the ending of treatment of our client.

This system is too complicated for most seniors to work to fix.

In addition to this, our client was a little “hard of hearing.”

How is a senior on Medicare supposed to know how to fix a “bad info in Medicare file” matter? Fortunately for her, she got her Medicare supplement policy through our agency and I am helping her.