MA Plan w/Wild benefits in Georgia Part 2

[somarco]

relying on ANY competitive carrier doesn’t guarantee a light work load during AEP.

I used to chase low rate Medigap carriers , , , not the same thing as MAPD, but still .. .

Stopped playing that game years ago. Not worth it, at least in the Medigap market.

 

[sman]

I used to chase low rate Medigap carriers , , , not the same thing as MAPD, but still .. .

Stopped playing that game years ago. Not worth it, at least in the Medigap market.

Definitely not worth it in Medigap market. I want as much stability there as possible. Don’t want clients stuck with a carrier in a death spiral on rates. With MAPD you can always move them if a carrier gets bad.

 

[DonP]

Definitely not worth it in Medigap market. I want as much stability there as possible. Don’t want clients stuck with a carrier in a death spiral on rates. With MAPD you can always move them if a carrier gets bad.

My experience with these very small carriers especially hmo’s is they deny a lot of services . Your correct Aetna and humana dumped a lot of plans . I don’t understand why they didn’t crosswalk them to the new less benefit plans ? They don’t care if they leave . The problem with a Sonder is not if they go under it’s how much hell you get from clients as they deny services left and right

 

[MedicareWAA]

Point is, relying on ANY competitive carrier doesn’t guarantee a light work load during AEP.

Fair point for sure. And if your agency is rooted in acting in the client’s best interest, whether to recommend one of these extra-generous plans is a complicated decision. A tricky balancing.

On one hand, you want the client to have the best possible benefits. On the other hand, you don’t want the client to feel jerked around year-to-year with big benefit changes.

I dealt with this all year with Aetna. I chose to be very transparent with clients as to the benefits being almost certainly unsustainable. I set the expectation that things would be taken away, and that I’m recommending the plan because it’s always been a good value in the markets where I sell. I expected the plan to remain a good value even without the free golf clubs, high allowances, and such.

Sometimes that caused the client to choose a different plan. Usually they still picked Aetna, but they made that choice with eyes wide open.

I’ve done this for about 20 years. Never ceases to amaze me how many carriers go really big on benefits or new markets only for it to fall apart 12-24 months later. Every single time. Ugh.