Making Sense of Medicare
The Connie Health team is, front, from left, David Luna and Michael Scopa; and back row, from left, Chris Fraser, Sammy Menton, Don Graham and Rita Bancroft. Oded Eran is not pictured. (Photo courtesy Connie Health)
Connie Health helps seniors navigate insurance with technology
By Alison Bailin Batz pening any new business has its challenges. Connie Health isn’t immune to that. Michael Scopa founded the health care venture with business partners David Luna and Oded Eran without knowing COVID-19 was on the horizon. “As you can imagine, businesses opening right now, like ours, are facing some of the most unique challenges of our time,” Scopa says. “Certainly, we are opening Connie
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Health at a precarious time, but it will take more than a global pandemic to keep us from our mission.” Launched in August—primarily online in the short term—Connie Health is named in honor of Scopa’s grandmother, Connie Francis, and is focused on empowering local seniors to make confident, worry-free decisions around Medicare plans and coverage. “People of all ages, but especially those approaching 65, shudder at the mere mention of Medicare, which is a government-run medical insurance program for those age 65 and older
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or people at any age with disabilities,” Scopa says. “It is overly complicated for no good reason, and we are out to change that.” Scopa, Eran and Luna have more than 25 years of combined experience helping people navigate what sometimes feels like the minefield that is Medicare coverage. “What we have found is that there were two ways individuals were securing their Medicare coverage,” Eran says. “The first is through technology, meaning finding a provider through a general internet search and then dealing with one of its call center