How many of your clients MAPD plans are being dropped?

[LostDollar]

Nope, not a single Aetna client's plan going away and minor changes to dental and OTC so they will stay put. Have a handful of UH that need moved and will be done the first week. May be golfing the 2nd week of AEP already. Life is good! No chaos here, just continuing renewals year after year. lol

Caveat, not an agent.

I am not going to expend the mental effort necessary to understand MA and compare recapped plan info plan by plan, but the KS medicare and you booklets for 2024 and 2025 both show almost 4pp of Aetna MA plans.

Based on that, if there are no significant changes in provider networks and plan formularies, and Aetna was a good fit for someone in 2024, it seems like a good bet that would continue to be the case in 2025.

(NO, I am not going to switch from OM to MA.)

 

[Chazm]

$1000 to $300 is basically zero. That preventive is based on in network reimbursement which is terrible . Example a cleaning is basically $80 reimbursement . What you're not saying is united came out with a competing new product called extra in almost every market i looked at that has stout dental . You move your people are they'll be moved by a call center

lol no one is choosing that plan. It's crap compared to their other HMO. Not even close.

Edit: and uhc covers preventive, not just cleanings. They'll cover oral evaluation, X-rays, and screenings I'm sure. It'll easily add up to $300.

 

[Midlevel]

Caveat, not an agent.

I am not going to expend the mental effort necessary to understand MA and compare recapped plan info plan by plan, but the KS medicare and you booklets for 2024 and 2025 both show almost 4pp of Aetna MA plans.

Based on that, if there are no significant changes in provider networks and plan formularies, and Aetna was a good fit for someone in 2024, it seems like a good bet that would continue to be the case in 2025.

(NO, I am not going to switch from OM to MA.)

I will get licensed in KS if you let me show you how much you would save going on a MAPD plan. On 2nd thought, I would rather get kicked in the balls repeatedly for 24 hrs.

 

[LostDollar]

I will get licensed in KS if you let me show you how much you would save going on a MAPD plan. On 2nd thought, I would rather get kicked in the balls repeatedly for 24 hrs.

Caveat, not an agent.

Not doing that.

I had a very bad experience with an agent getting a KS license so I could work with him. He told me repeatedly about all the E&O liability risk he was taking in getting the license and working with me. Then he would not listen to me when I told him he was wasting his time doing work I had not asked him to do and had no use for and fired me as a client. I don't need to waste my time with a repeat of that experience.

And I have options for your proposal with agents that already have KS licenses.

There is a local medicare business that I want nowhere near my insurance matters that has contacted me several years running to provide AEP assistance.

And my current Medicare agent is aggressively marketing to his BOB this year.

There is a third agent who would be most happy to discuss UHC mapd options with me.

And a fourth agent who would be most happy to discuss Humana mapd options with me.

Since, as I have already said elsewhere, I will most likely remain with the $0 premium Wellcare PDP product, I am not planning on any agent conversations. The only possible change for that would be if the BC $0 premium product has Kroger pharmacies in its preferred network.

I will see plenty of posts here in the first two weeks of Oct about how good or how sucky the WC and Cigna PDP's are in terms of formularies and drug tiers.

 

[InsuranceGuy29]

If you don't have a team of licensed people to do this for you you're going to spend several hours switching these clients with all of the new disclosures you have to read over the phone or by driving to their homes in traffic. I don't have that many but just the sheer percentage of them that have dropped their plan, or have been switched out, both intentionally and unintentionally, is souring me on Medicare health plans all together. Imagine trying to expand your client base during AEP but being pulled back by all the changes and having to switch people that have been dropped, switched or resold from a lying, uncaring and unregulated call center overseas? Sometimes it seems that all we're doing is setting clients up for them. Going forward, I'm mostly doing personal life clients and direct referrals.

That's why you find creative ways around things. In this industry, you just have to do what you have to do. There are not enough hours in the day to service all these people. Especially when some carriers think we should be working for free. Call recording? lol. C'mon now. I know exactly zero agents doing that.

And your last line is how I operate my business. Build it slow and steady with stable and trustworthy clients. If you're constantly chasing complete strangers, BELIEVE ME, these people are gonna make you work yourself to literal death.

In general, the kinds of people that answer mailers, telemarketing calls and such, are not stable. From my experience, these are the people you're constantly gonna be doing most of the work for, and then they're gonna drop your ass out of the blue for the next shiny thing (call, mailer, etc.)

People like this are professional "shop-around-ers." They will change plans to save $1.50 a month. They are not loyal to you or any other agent or company. How you get them is how you lose them.

 

[Midlevel]

Caveat, not an agent.

Not doing that.

I had a very bad experience with an agent getting a KS license so I could work with him. He told me repeatedly about all the E&O liability risk he was taking in getting the license and working with me. Then he would not listen to me when I told him he was wasting his time doing work I had not asked him to do and had no use for and fired me as a client. I don't need to waste my time with a repeat of that experience.

And I have options for your proposal with agents that already have KS licenses.

There is a local medicare business that I want nowhere near my insurance matters that has contacted me several years running to provide AEP assistance.

And my current Medicare agent is aggressively marketing to his BOB this year.

There is a third agent who would be most happy to discuss UHC mapd options with me.

And a fourth agent who would be most happy to discuss Humana mapd options with me.

Since, as I have already said elsewhere, I will most likely remain with the $0 premium Wellcare PDP product, I am not planning on any agent conversations. The only possible change for that would be if the BC $0 premium product has Kroger pharmacies in its preferred network.

I will see plenty of posts here in the first two weeks of Oct about how good or how sucky the WC and Cigna PDP's are in terms of formularies and drug tiers.

It was a joke…

 

[kak6407]

Call recording? lol. C'mon now. I know exactly zero agents doing that.

Just curious...why would you not do this? Unless you are just using your cell phone for business it is simple. I have been recording calls for at least the past 6 years if not longer. I do use Ring Central for my business so it is simple for me as it doesn't cost anything extra. But it has saved my butt a couple time with people saying I said such and such...then I send the a copy of the recorded call and I don't hear anything after that. Doesn't happen often. But it is nice also if you want to refresh your memory on your last conversation. It just makes good business sense, whether required or not, to record the calls imo.

 

[InsuranceGuy29]

Just curious...why would you not do this? Unless you are just using your cell phone for business it is simple. I have been recording calls for at least the past 6 years if not longer. I do use Ring Central for my business so it is simple for me as it doesn't cost anything extra. But it has saved my butt a couple time with people saying I said such and such...then I send the a copy of the recorded call and I don't hear anything after that. Doesn't happen often. But it is nice also if you want to refresh your memory on your last conversation. It just makes good business sense, whether required or not, to record the calls imo.

My cell phone is how I conduct all business. Plus, I just think it's absolutely ridiculous that small mom and pop agents have to bug their clients.

But I also think it's way too formal and puts people on edge right from the get-go….

"Oh wait, I can't talk to you until I turn my phone-bugging device on, and read this disclaimer that makes it sound like I'm scamming you."

Nah, no thanks. I'll just do everything in person and via text and email.

Text and email is all you need to save your rear end, anyway. Plus, I have zero interest in paying for storage, and storing a city's-worth of audio recordings about intimate details until…… who even knows when?

If agents want to do it, I'm all for it, but it should be completely voluntary. It's absolutely not necessary to force agents to do this.

The problem is, was, and always will be the call centers. Not us. They even said that, after they conducted research.

Of course, said research was AFTER they made the rule. Yet we still have to record? No thanks. Not doing it.

 

[AgentGeneral]

My cell phone is how I conduct all business. Plus, I just think it's absolutely ridiculous that small mom and pop agents have to bug their clients.

But I also think it's way too formal and puts people on edge right from the get-go….

"Oh wait, I can't talk to you until I turn my phone-bugging device on, and read this disclaimer that makes it sound like I'm scamming you."

Nah, no thanks. I'll just do everything in person and via text and email.

Text and email is all you need to save your rear end, anyway. Plus, I have zero interest in paying for storage, and storing a city's-worth of audio recordings about intimate details until…… who even knows when?

If agents want to do it, I'm all for it, but it should be completely voluntary. It's absolutely not necessary to force agents to do this.

The problem is, was, and always will be the call centers. Not us. They even said that, after they conducted research.

Of course, said research was AFTER they made the rule. Yet we still have to record? No thanks. Not doing it.

Right. Sometimes I do sometimes I don't record. Depends.

I'm all F2F anyway, and was for the 2nd time last week asked for my call recordings. I sent an email with the SOA, and attested I did F2F on said enrollments, and so far, not a peep. Same thing happened last year. I said, what recordings? I did all of them at an event (retail), which wasn't exactly accurate and never another peep.

I'll do that every time and give them ONLY the SOA and attest to F2F (even though I probably have a recording and a paper app).

Speaking of which I noticed a new category in the Humana Vantage this morn in BOB, called SOA verification code and under it has a few different codes, B and G and some have no code. Have no idea where this is heading yet, if anywhere

 

[AgentGeneral]

Humana Part B giveback 306 got axed from one county I work in.

Whew. So far so good though Under 20 to move. Not a bad AEP this year.

Under 10 aetnas to move bc no longer in network