11 (Benefits, Tony Caparella)

Today's SWAPA number is 11. That's the number of days that the SWAPA Open Enrollment period is available. That runs from October 13th to October 24th, and you have several decisions to make if you wish to change your STD and LTD elections.

So today we are sitting down with Benefits Committee member, Tony Caparella, to talk about what we've learned after 18 months of the new benefits package from Contract 2020, the open enrollment period, and some recent experiences by our pilots out on loss of license.

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Transcript

Amy Robinson:

Today's SWAPA number is 11. That's the number of days that the SWAPA open enrollment period is available. That runs from October 13th to October 24th, and you have several decisions to make if you wish to change your STD and LTD elections.

Tony Mulhare:

So today we are sitting down with benefits committee member Tony Caparella, to talk about what we've learned after 18 months of the new benefits package from contract 2020, the open enrollment period, and some recent experiences by our pilots out on loss of license.

I'm Tony Mulhare.

Amy Robinson:

And I'm Amy Robinson. And here's our interview with Tony.

Tony Mulhare:

All right, so Tony, let's start out with our annual preview of open enrollment season. What's up for changes, the differences between SWAPA open enrollment and Southwest Open enrollment, and why this is an important time for everyone to check their benefits selections?

Tony Caparella:

All right. As for SWAPA, annual open enrollment for short-term disability and long-term disability plans, it'll be October 13th through the 24th this year. For medical open enrollment and loss of license, that will be Southwest Open Enrollment the first two weeks of November.

Tony Mulhare:

And for the loss of license, that's just your taxable versus non-taxable?

Tony Caparella:

Correct. That's your election to either have the tax-free version or the taxable, which is given to every single pilot at Southwest.

Amy Robinson:

I know we've done it before, but let's go ahead and walk people through how they can figure out whether they're taxable or non-taxable

Tony Caparella:

On the left-hand side of your pay stub, under imputed income, if you have the tax-free version of loss of license, you'll see right under SWAG imputed income, non-taxed LOL. And that's how you can tell if you have the tax-free version. If you don't see anything at all, you won't see anything, you'll have the taxable version.

Tony Mulhare:

Tony, if I have STD and LTD selections, how do I tell which one that I have right now and where do I see that in my income statement?

Tony Caparella:

Sure. On the right-hand side of your pay stub, midway down, you'll see STD followed by LTD either A or LTD B.

Tony Mulhare:

Okay, very good. And that's what I can change this year is I can change from STD. If I haven't picked that up, I can choose that. If I don't have LTD or if I have LTD A and I want to change LTD B, I can select that during this open-end enrollment period. If I go to do that, especially if I'm upgrading from LTD A to LTD B, then there's a statement of health. So talk us through that and what that entails.

Tony Caparella:

Anytime that you have an upgrade to a disability plan, you're going to need a statement of health, whether you had short-term disability or you didn't have it, and you want it, you'll need a statement of health. If you're going from LTD A to LTD B, you'll need a statement of health. If you have LTD B and you want to go down to LTD A, you do not need a statement of health to do so.

Tony Mulhare:

Okay. And what are some of the issues that we've been seeing with those statements of health?

Tony Caparella:

We've seen a lot of denials with regards to the statement of health. And I can't specifically tell you what it's caused by, but they do go back into your medical records.

Amy Robinson:

So why is it important for new hires to pay attention to this time period?

Tony Caparella:

For the new hires that we've had this year, most likely if they haven't done anything, they have short-term disability and long-term disability plan A. So this is their first opportunity to make a change to either of those. For the upcoming new hire classes, they'll have 30 days to make a selection without a statement of health.

Tony Mulhare:

That happens during their new hire class. You guys go and see them on day two or something.

Tony Caparella:

Yep. We brief the new hire classes day one at Southwest, and then again a few weeks later when they come to SWAPA.

Amy Robinson:

So we are more than 18 months post-ratification. And what have we learned in the first year and a half as far as benefits under contract 2020?

Tony Caparella:

The big changes are instead of a six-month elimination period, we're now down to a sixty-day elimination period before you go on loss of license and long-term disability. As well as a fourteen-day elimination period for short-term disability versus a thirty-day elimination period. That's probably the biggest change. Sick leave is also a huge change this year, because the chief pilots actually have to pull any trips on your board for the full requirement of sick bank.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah, so that's been a big change from previous practice where you could tell them how much sick you wanted them to pull. So talk us through if I have an issue going to have a surgery, something like that, or I get hurt, talk us through why I should call benefits first and what you're going to talk to that pilot about before they call their chief pilot and have their remaining schedule pulled for sick leave.

Tony Caparella:

Sure. Especially for our new pilots who haven't been able to grow their sick bank yet, it's important because we don't want their sick bank to go to zero when their board is blocked with medical. So what I would advise them is, hey, try to give as many trips away as you can in trip trade giveaway before your board is blocked for medical.

Tony Mulhare:

So Tony, the timing of when I call my chief pilot to give them the news that I'm going to need to take a medical leave of absence is important in reference specifically to when we bid and are awarded our schedule for the following month. So talk me through that timing and if I got a smaller sick bank because either I've had sick trip used in the past for some reason, or I'm just a relatively new pilot and I haven't built up this massive sick bank yet. Talk me through the timing there and why that's so important.

Tony Caparella:

So prior to the ninth of the month is when you want to make sure you call your chief pilot so that way you're not getting a line for the following month. That said, you could always bid a blank line. And then wait until prior to the 19th to call because you won't have a line awarded to your board.

Amy Robinson:

I'm sure you get this all the time, but how many sick trips should I have?

Tony Caparella:

The more the merrier is the correct answer. However, minimum would be 200, I'd recommend. 400 because you'll probably hear this a lot that you're going to go out in medical at some point in your career. But for me, I think over 1000 is always a very safe place to be, especially if you do go out in medical.

Tony Mulhare:

So let's go through those numbers. So 200, why?

Tony Caparella:

The reason why I say 200 is if you go out on the ninth of the month, the rest of that month and the following month that's already been awarded to you is going to be dropped for sick bank. So 200 will cover those two months. And you'll still have sick trips left in your bank. So you can use one sick trip per month to accrue vacation the following year. Whereas in the past contract, it was 47.5 trips a month, and now it's only one sick trip per month.

Tony Mulhare:

So that's an important thing for guys to keep in mind, right? You don't want to have just the minimum, you want to have enough to get you through the elimination period as well as to bring your loss of license, which is 50% of your MBE. You can top that up to 100%, right?

Tony Caparella:

Yes. And think about it this way. When you go out on disability, and if you have a huge sick bank, let's say I have 1600 trips, financially, I'm going to be going through probably one of the hardest times of my life with regards to the Mayo Clinic if it's something serious. And with a huge sick bank, I can supplement loss of license and long-term disability to cover those bills as they come.

Amy Robinson:

So let's talk about best practices for pilots in terms of paperwork with a disability. Do you have any suggestions, recommendations, things of that nature?

Tony Caparella:

I do have some recommendations. I'd recommend that every pilot have a primary care physician. This way, if something does happen to you and you need to go to six different doctors for six different items, then you can just have that one doctor fill out the paperwork.

Amy Robinson:

Are you saying in addition to your AME, you need to have a PCP or are you saying use your AME as your PCP?

Tony Caparella:

You definitely don't want to use your AME as your PCP.

Tony Mulhare:

Okay.

Tony Caparella:

You definitely want to have your own primary care physician that can handle the paperwork and still have access to all your medical data.

Tony Mulhare:

Why not your AME then?

Tony Caparella:

Your AME will not fill out any paperwork for you. So your primary care physician is what you would need to fill out the paperwork or a provider or a license to provide that care that you're getting.

Amy Robinson:

So as an example, you're wanting someone to coordinate care for you if you had-

Tony Caparella:

Let's say I have a mental condition.

Amy Robinson:

Okay.

Tony Caparella:

And I'm seeing a licensed therapist, then yes, I could use that licensed therapist to fill out paperwork.

Tony Mulhare:

That paperwork's pretty important. Because that sets the date of diagnosis. And so talk about why the date of diagnosis is so important as we're talking about STD, LTD and loss of license benefits. So specifically what happens if I hurt my knee skiing, I'm not really sure if I've torn my ACL or not. I limp around for two or three weeks. I finally go see a doctor three or four weeks into this. Maybe I've just been able to trip trade out of some trips or I've dropped some things with sick leave, but I haven't ever started, I haven't seen a doctor and been diagnosed with an ACL tear or some other injury. And I finally go, and now I know I'm going to need surgery. I know this is going to be a longer thing. When does my disability start?

Tony Caparella:

So your disability would start when you saw your primary care physician instead of when the incident actually happened?

Tony Mulhare:

And so my elimination period would be set off of when I was hurt or when I saw the doctor.

Tony Caparella:

In your case, it would be set off to when you saw your doctor. Minus seven days. They'll go back seven days for that.

Tony Mulhare:

But that can be a pretty significant difference as far as the 60-day elimination period or the 14-day period for STD. I might think I'm well into that elimination period, and maybe I'm not, if I haven't seen a doctor.

Tony Caparella:

Absolutely. I've had pilots know they have a condition and they just didn't go see a doctor for a month, like maybe a hernia, and then a month later they go to their doctor and they need surgery. And so it'll start when they saw their doctor and weren't diagnosed with that event.

Tony Mulhare:

I think it's an important thing for guys to know is that as pilots, we're generally pretty hesitant to want to go get a diagnosis because it sometimes means that our medical is impacted. But if you don't, you're delaying the onset of your benefits and that's pretty big deal. You got bills coming in and all of a sudden you're allowing through your sick bank because you haven't been able to start LOL or STD or NLT.

Tony Caparella:

Correct. So if you think you have a problem, go see a doctor immediately. And at least you can get it identified.

Amy Robinson:

So I know that we always say, I might not need short-term disability. I know that's how pilots think. I might need it, might not use it, whatever. But go ahead and talk through your specific story where you did need it recently.

Tony Caparella:

All right, so back in beginning of April, I was diagnosed with shingles. And didn't realize that I had had it for about five days. And so it was on an overnight in Cancun and realized that I had a rash forming on my right side of my shoulder and my back and my neck. The following morning, I knew it was something pretty severe. So as soon as I got back to Denver, I ended up going directly to the emergency room where they diagnosed me with very severe shingles.

Tony Mulhare:

And so what happened then?

Tony Caparella:

So at that point in time, I was bedridden for about 10 days with multiple symptoms from severe joint pain. I couldn't move my shoulder, couldn't move my elbow. I had shocks going throughout my body from my shoulder down the side, down my arm. I had fevers and I had blisters from my right chest over my shoulder to my back-up my neck, and all the way down my arm into my hand. Also had chills and sweats for about 12 days. Severe headaches, severe scalp pain, the actual shingles, the blisters themselves feel like a thousand bee stings, 24 hours a day. Which then caused a lack of sleep for the first 45 days of my shingles.

Tony Mulhare:

How long did this go on?

Tony Caparella:

I was completely free of any side effects after day 82.

Amy Robinson:

Wow. So you were out a little over two months?

Tony Caparella:

Almost three months I was out.

Amy Robinson:

Wow.

Tony Caparella:

And so what I did is I went to my primary care physician about six days after I was at the emergency room, and there is where I started my paperwork for short-term disability as well as loss of license.

Tony Mulhare:

So Tony, you do this all the time with other pilots, you walk them through this process, but was this your first time going out on a medical leave of absence?

Tony Caparella:

This was my first time in eight years that I went out on a medical leave of absence.

Tony Mulhare:

And so what did you learn going through this process yourself?

Tony Caparella:

So I learned some hard things that I've seen with other pilots throughout the years. One being your doctor doesn't want to fill out the paperwork. So I was calling the doctor's office weekly, and finally after about three and a half weeks, I paid a visit in person again to him just to collect the paperwork so I can submit it to MetLife as well as Colorado family.

Tony Mulhare:

So three and a half weeks of waiting for paperwork, so your 14-day elimination period from STD was well passed by the time the paperwork got turned in?

Tony Caparella:

Yes.

Tony Mulhare:

So how did that delay impact STD and when you started to get payments from MetLife?

Tony Caparella:

So it took at least 33 days before it was approved. And they repaid me from the past two and a half weeks.

Amy Robinson:

So you had to be able to support yourself during that elimination period until that paperwork caught up?

Tony Caparella:

Absolutely.

Tony Mulhare:

What was going on with your trips for pay at that time? Were you using your sick bank? What were you using to make sure you had income coming in to pay the bills?

Tony Caparella:

So I still had a number of trips on my board for that month and the following month. So those dropped for sick bank, so I was getting my normal paycheck. So I wasn't really in need of that short-term disability payment. But if I didn't have any sick bank, I would be in a lot of trouble during that timeframe.

Tony Mulhare:

And so eventually you were paid back, if you will, your first STD payment was a relatively large.

Tony Caparella:

It was a retro paid back from STD and also Colorado family.

Tony Mulhare:

But it's just something to think about for our pilots is because of the paperwork and the things that happened in the approval process, STD doesn't necessarily kick in on day 15 as far as when you're going to get a check from MetLife. And so whether you have sick bank, whether you have a savings account with some emergency fund, rainy day fund, whatever it is to make sure that the mortgage, the car, et cetera, that those bills are being paid on time.

Tony Caparella:

Correct. Yeah, the sick bank is what got me through that first month and I didn't have to worry about the short-term disability payments to survive.

Tony Mulhare:

Okay. So let's say I've been here less than two years, and so I've never gotten to the 200 sick trips yet. Just I'm at a hundred and whatever. I've been here a year. I'm at roughly 100. A company, that bridge benefit, how quickly does the bridge benefit get approved to help a guy get through those first couple of weeks to two months?

Tony Caparella:

So for those pilots that have been here less than 20 months, there's a bridge benefit to where when their loss of license is approved and they've been out on disability for 60 days or longer, they can file for the bridge benefit. And it's 20 months minus the amount of months that you've been at Southwest. So for instance, if I've been here five months, then my bridge benefit would be 150 trips when it gets approved, put into my paycheck.

Tony Mulhare:

And how quickly has that process been? Have we seen that exercise very much? I know we don't have that many guys that are under-

Tony Caparella:

Yeah, we've had at least I would say 8 to 10 pilots that have used the bridge benefit so far.

Amy Robinson:

Oh, wow.

Tony Caparella:

And once their lost license is approved, they submit it to finance and it's approved within a few days.

Tony Mulhare:

That's pretty quick. That's good news.

Amy Robinson:

Any recommendations for anyone based on your illness?

Tony Caparella:

So I will tell you, shingles was the worst thing that I've ever gone through in my entire life. There's not been one thing, all the surgeries that I've had, broken bones, nothing compared to the pain and the suffering that I went through. Now that said, it wouldn't have been three months if I wouldn't have screwed up myself. So during this timeframe, I was on 2,400 milligrams of Gabapentin steroids, hydrocodone, antiviral, and a number of different lotions, which I had about 12 sitting on my counter. Accidentally around day 38, I used one such lotion that wasn't prescribed to me and was actually prescribed to my wife called tretinoin, which is 20 times stronger than retinol. It was more like day 48 and I started feeling better finally. And when I rubbed my wife's prescribed lotion on my shoulder and back, I literally chemical appealed my entire shoulder and chest. And so that's what extended that timeframe.

Amy Robinson:

Any caveats or suggestions for anyone based on your personal experience?

Tony Caparella:

Absolutely, because I paid $20,000 to go back in time and get the shingles vaccine, so one broke out or maybe two. If I did get it wouldn't have been as severe.

Tony Mulhare:

So I thought we couldn't get that until you we were 60.

Tony Caparella:

The age is 50 now. And you can get the vaccine. It's a two part vaccine. I'm not a huge vaccine guy, never have been. However, this is one that I guarantee you I would get.

Tony Mulhare:

So I had a friend in a previous squadron I was in get shingles. And he describes it as a similar experience of just absolutely the most painful thing he's ever dealt with in his life. And the numbers are pretty high in the United States for people who get shingles. So talk about that for a second.

Tony Caparella:

So approximately 33% of the population will get shingles of some sort. 99% of people actually get the chickenpox even though they may not remember it or it wasn't that bad of a case. So if you had chickenpox as a kid, you're very susceptible to getting shingles later in your life.

Amy Robinson:

And I think that's more based on the younger population is vaccinated against chickenpox, whereas our generation was not vaccinated.

Tony Mulhare:

Right. Yeah. It was a rite of passage in first grade and kindergarten.

Amy Robinson:

Or seventh grade in my case. So I did get the shingles vaccine. Because I do remember having chickenpox, so I would never do that again.

Tony Caparella:

And it doesn't stop the shingles from coming out, but it does lessen the severity of it.

Amy Robinson:

Minimize. Yeah.

Tony Caparella:

Yeah.

Tony Mulhare:

Okay. So you filed for STD that took about 30 days to get approved. What is the process then? Is it the same process? Is it happening? Do you have to file separately or is it just all the same process to file for LTD when that kicks in and/or loss of license?

Tony Caparella:

The short-term disability will automatically go into the long-term disability. MetLife will require some additional paperwork. As for the loss of license, that paperwork is separate. So I actually recommend to pilots, "Hey, when you're filing your short-term disability, you might as well follow your license license." Because that will kick in at the 60 day point. That way you're not sending two different packets to your doctor to fill out two different times.

Tony Mulhare:

There are guys who, especially some of our younger pilots, they're 20 something, they're bulletproof, they don't need all this insurance, this isn't going to happen to them. Medical leave is an old pilot problem, not a young pilot problem. Talk us through what happens when you have a pilot that goes out on disability that does not have a very high sick bank and what those conversations are like.

Tony Caparella:

So those conversations start out by saying, do not drop your board for medical until you get rid of the trips on your board. Because if you go to zero sick trips, then you're not going to be able to use one sick trip per month to accrue the vacation the following year. So we have to coach their process until they get down to a point below what they have in their sick bank, what's left on their board. And at that point then you can block your board out medically and then use one sick trip for your vacation accrual per month.

Tony Mulhare:

And what is the general stress level when you're having that conversation with somebody who they chose not to have STD and so they were just relying on the company loss of license?

Tony Caparella:

A lot of times it's a super high stress because short-term disability is fantastic now. It's $2,500 a week tax-free, however, they were used to making a lot more than that per month. Once loss of license kicks in at the 68 point, that's a huge help. Because it's 50% and if it's tax-free, you're looking at approximately 79% of your income. So loss of license is a huge help. I would highly recommend short-term disability because the likelihood that you go out after 14 days is high. And I'm a gambler, so whether it's pneumonia, you twist your ankle, mess your knee up, you're probably going to be out more than 14 days and use that short-term disability policy.

Tony Mulhare:

And then LTD is obviously on top of loss of license. Those two things don't offset each other. And so that's certainly a personal decision for each pilot on how much insurance they want to have against their medical. But generally that conversation with pilots is much less stress when they have a high sick bank. When they have the STD and the LTD on top of their loss of license benefits, because they just know that that money's going to come in.

Tony Caparella:

Yeah, once I have a pilot that has all coverages with a huge sick bank, they're pretty relieved with regards to what they're going to receive out while on a disability.

Amy Robinson:

I'm sure it does help cover a lot of their costs and relieve the stress of what's going to happen with their mortgage. And like Tony said earlier, kids college payments, things like that.

Tony Caparella:

Absolutely. And whether a pilot should have STD, LTD, tax-free loss of license is really dependent upon that pilot. If I have a pilot who has no kids and doesn't need that much income, then you probably don't need all of the coverages.

Tony Mulhare:

So it's certainly a personal decision. We recommend pilots to talk to their financial advisor when they're looking at this, but it's different for a young pilot versus a pilot that's just a few years left, that's got a pretty large sick bank and has their house paid off. Those are vastly different financial needs and requirements and different insurance needs for that.

Amy Robinson:

One of the things you say a lot though is statistically it's not if, it's when.

Tony Caparella:

Absolutely. There's no doubt in my mind that I see cases every single day, whether you're a marathon or triathlete, it doesn't matter. I see the same exact things with regards to a pilot who's in credible shape or a pilot who is not in good shape.

Tony Mulhare:

And I think another misconception from many of our pilots is, if I have 200 sick trips, I'm good. And that might cover you for your first instance of going out, but then you would need several more years of no issues before you could go out again. And talk us through a case where you've seen guys, and certainly our contract covers you if it's a recurrence of the same thing, if it's a cancer that goes into remission and then reoccurs, that's considered to be the same disability claim. But if it's not, you have a shoulder injury and then you're out for a bit, you come back three or four weeks later, you get hit by a car and break your leg. That's a completely separate.

Tony Caparella:

Completely separate. And you got to start over with short-term disability if it's a separate event. If it is the same event, and if you're on loss of license, then you'll have six months. So if you have the same event within a six-month period, you'll start right where you left off. If you're on short-term disability, you have 20 days of work that if you go out for the same situation, then you'll start right where you left off a short-term.

Amy Robinson:

But if you have a completely different injury, that's a whole new-

Tony Mulhare:

That's a whole new elimination.

Tony Caparella:

You start a whole new elimination period.

Amy Robinson:

Okay.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah. And that's again, just back to the theme of more is better, those conversations that you have with pilots that have a small sick bank, that's generally a much more stressed out pilot than a pilot who has LTD, STD.

Amy Robinson:

And a decent sick bank yet.

Tony Caparella:

Yeah, absolutely. You never have a pilot stressing out that goes out on disability with a huge sick bank and all the coverage.

Tony Mulhare:

And that just allows a guy to focus on getting well, as opposed to focusing on getting or trying to get well. Meanwhile, they're stressed out by whatever financial commitments they have that suddenly they're going to have a hard time covering.

Tony Caparella:

Exactly. The more prepared you are, the better. And when we were talking about when Lyft was talking about wills and trusts and being prepared for that moment, we're going to start pushing that out more is to make sure you're covered not only by your insurances, but also by your wills. Have a trust, an estate and make sure you're covered that way as well. I actually got mine done the second week of my shingles.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah, a little bit of time on your hands.

Tony Caparella:

I know. I was a little scared.

Tony Mulhare:

Yeah.

Amy Robinson:

So we've talked a lot about individual issues and coverages and things like that. Let's talk a little bit about education for pilots, this enrollment period, what's available for them?

Tony Caparella:

So on our website, you can go into the benefits, a medical committee, and we have a plethora of playbooks in there that talk about each and every of the disability plans and also what the percentages are. So if you want to have an idea of how much LTDB would pay after six months, you can look in there and say, "Well, I made this amount of money." So you can do a percentage of that and say, "Well, it looks like around four or $500 on top of loss license." So you can kind of game plan from there with regards to your previous 12 months.

Tony Mulhare:

So Tony, wrap us up today. Remind us of when the open enrollment period is. And if I've got what I want, what do I have to do? And if I want to make a change, what do I have to do to make a change to STD LTD or loss of license?

Tony Caparella:

Yeah, absolutely. So October 13th through the 24th is our open enrollment period. And during that timeframe, we'll send out an automated form that you can fill out whether you want to deny something or add something. After you submit that, then you'll get a statement of health if you do upgrade any of your insurances.

Tony Mulhare:

Okay.

Tony Caparella:

And then of course, we're going to be on the phones the entire two weeks, so feel free to give us a call and discuss your exact situation.

Amy Robinson:

We should also have a few more educational pieces. Some videos have already gone out that you can take a look at that will help as well.

Tony Mulhare:

Absolutely.

Tony Caparella:

I do want to say that there are cases out there where the pilot is unable to do any of this, because maybe they're in a coma or TBI unit. We do work with the spouses to take care of all this with regards to bidding, with regards to short-term disability paperwork as loss of license paperwork. So just make your spouse aware that if something does happen, give us a call and we'll take care of you.

Amy Robinson:

We'd like to thank Tony for taking the time to talk to us today and for sharing his personal experiences with a medical leave of absence. And please remember, if you have any feedback for us at all, please drop us a line at comm@swapa.org. We really do want to hear from you.

Tony Mulhare:

And finally, today's bonus number is 33. That's the percentage of people who will get shingles at some point in their lifetime. That's the statistic the CDC provides. Tony's story just illustrates the importance of making sure you have the proper coverage for you and your family.