Chair Talk
January 2021
Notices have been sent informing Chapters that I have scheduled a SPECIAL COORDINATING COUNCIL MEETING (conference call) for 10:00 am on Friday January 15, 2021. We have requested that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services provide a representative to speak about/and answer questions regarding the Covid-19 vaccines. MDHHS has provided Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian to speak to us. This presentation/questions will take about an hour. The second part of the meeting will involve a discussion about the retiree lists we receive from ORS and the agreements we have with the Hantz Group. This discussion is vitally important to SERA and our recruitment of retirees.
Conference call phone # is: 602-580-9409 Access code: 4975894
Recently, we have had a Chapter President die (Virginia Larson Pontiac Chapter) and a Chapter President (Dave Cook Ionia) hospitalized. What we have learned from these occurrences is that no one in the two Chapters mentioned knew how to contact either Virginia’s or Dave’s relatives. I think it would be helpful if Chapter officers would inform the other officers in the Chapter of who to contact in the event of any emergency or hospitalization so someone can contact others for information.
I have been contacted by 2 Lansing Chapter SERA members (Don Quillan 517-490-8105 and Kathie Vaught 517-663-3673) asking me to provide information about a Medical Supply Company (Healthy Living Medical Supply 866-779-8512 www.myhlms.com) that provides supplies for type 1 and 2 Diabetics. The company is in Detroit. I contacted Blue Cross inquiring about the company and received the following response:
Healthy Living Supply is not part of our Medicare Advantage PPO network; however, they do participate with Medicare and are willing to accept the Medicare Advantage PPO ID card.
Editor’s note: Bob Kopasz is Chair of the Michigan SERA Council. He may be reached at P.O. Box 692, Mt. Morris, MI 48458; phone 810/240-8380.