Health Sherpa

I don't get the "hilarious" part.

Benjamin Burfict
Burfict Insurance Agency
Cincinnati, Ohio
Service Since 1968

You better watch out or I will stop off and crack you on the side of the head with a running start way after the whistle is blown, homey!!!

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I became a quick Steelers fan when the Cincy fans boo'd him off the field after injury. That's inexcusable.

I have no rooting interest in any of these games (Giants fan, regrettably) but any team whose best defensive player feels the need to run off the field and into the tunnel before the game was over just because he made a good play has an overwhelming need to lose said game.

Every one of these players should be forced to sit down and watch video of two players-Jim Brown (greatest running back in history, by far) and Jerry Rice. When they scored, they turned around, handed the ball to the ref and trotted off the field like THEY'VE DONE IT BEFORE and would do it many times again.
 
Monday, January 18, 2016

A new multiple-question "screener" window now appears after you click to apply for a given plan...

"Dear Allen

Per CMS guidance, starting Sunday, January 17th, HealthSherpa will begin utilizing an application screener to identify potential complex eligibility cases, including less common household scenarios (e.g. adult dependents over age 26), and households containing immigrants or naturalized citizens. These cases represent approximately 15-20% of applications, and will be processed via double-redirect to Healthcare.gov.

There will be NO charge for these applications, and they’ll show up as normal applications on your HealthSherpa dashboard.

All other applications will continue to be processed through HealthSherpa for the remainder of this Open Enrollment Period.

If you have any questions, please contact our Agent Support team at [email protected].

Thank you,
Team HealthSherpa"

-ac
 
for people experiencing the healthsherpa "screener" page - this is another tragedy of the healthsherpa experience.

These are EXACTLY the same questions that are asked AFTER the double-redirect- you end up answering them twice.

CMS continues to find ways to sc..w with the web-brokers to make it as laborious as possible. It is clear that there is a general interest on their part to eliminate this channel.
 
Agreed. I'm already telling some clients I will not likely be around next year.

Here is an idea of what it's been like with just one carrier here in NC. Sadly that carrier is VERY competitive around NC:

- Right before AEP, Humana pulls out of FFM. Carrier drops commission by 10%.
- Mid November, Carrier does not like how things are looking, drops comp by 76% (to 2% of premium)
- Mid December, Carrier drops comp again, now from 2% to 0% for business after 1/1/16.
- On 1/5/16, Carrier broker service tell me they were wrong on the grace period (clients could pay by 1/31 and keep 1/1/16 eff date). New date is 1/1, policies will be cancelled this week at some point, but you can write your clients for 2/1 or 3/1 and get 0% comp. Carrier Billing dept says payments are due by 1/15. Who knows what is correct.
- 1/6, now broker service tells us that the payment deadline is 1/9/16 to keep 1/1 eff date. Plan terminate for non pay will start next week.

Now imagine each carrier having issues with billing, issuing cards, taking payments, payment website crashing, hold times of 1-2 hours. Clients are freaking out calling/emailing/texting about not being able to make payments, get meds, get cards, make appts, etc.

It's like you are blindfolded and fighting multiple people; meanwhile the other guys are punching you like crazy....

Yeah, come on in. You might find yourself all alone next AEP...You might be famous..the only health broker left in the business.
next year, we plan to focus only on places where new entrants such as Oscar are setting up networks. These older companies need to be driven out of the market.

let's not forget that the carriers have determined that direct sales are far more profitable than agent channel, even if they have to pay high customer acquisition costs equivalent to the agent commissions.

sadly, also, the agent community has brought some of this on themselves. There are too many bait-and-switch sites, sales of unnecessary supplemental polices and outright fraud.

remarkably, the most helpful and knowledgeable consumer support I have seen are the call center folks at healthcare.gov.
 
remarkably, the most helpful and knowledgeable consumer support I have seen are the call center folks at healthcare.gov.

You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, TechBroker! I would say that we're more helpful than HC.gov people, when our hands aren't tied. We're definitely more knowledgable about what product is best suited for a prospect.
 
You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, TechBroker! I would say that we're more helpful than HC.gov people, when our hands aren't tied. We're definitely more knowledgeable about what product is best suited for a prospect.

Thank you for your encouragement, sadly we have concluded that, other than the most generous cost-sharing reduction plans for our lower-income clients, the on-exchange plans are so expensive, with such high cost sharing parameters as to be outright insulting. There is nothing more embarrassing than having to represent such products. For folks with serious health conditions, our technology platform provides an instant view of the most cost-effective plans, but this is hardly the norm.
 
Went to use healthsherpa today, probably one of my last IFP plans I'll ever do, and healthsherpa is back to making you go through the marketplace. No thanks. I finished it on ACAexpress in minutes.
 
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