MedSupps in Crosshairs

[stormtracker]

Seems like this has all been tried before. Wasn't it called "HMO", or "managed care", or something like that?

 

[MedSuppPro]

From another thread (Re: Cross Selling on MA App), I felt this was a more appropriate place to repost this -- Thanks Lee Sanford!

I wonder why CMS is leaving supplements alone for the time being.......[/quote]


MIPAA said CMS had to do something about MA and PDP regarding commissions and marketing, which they did (or are still in the process of doing???). It also said that they had to address Med Supp. In April, they did that by adopting the 2007 NAIC recommendations. Those recommendations include mandating a '2X first year/X years 2-6' formula. Here's the quote:


A. An issuer or other entity may provide commission or other compensation to an agent or other representative for the sale of a Medicare supplement policy or certificate only if the first year commission or other first year compensation is no more than 200 percent of the commission or other compensation paid for selling or servicing the policy or certificate in the second year or period.
B. The commission or other compensation provided in subsequent (renewal) years must be the same as that provided in the second year or period and must be provided for no fewer than five (5) renewal years.

Sound familiar? This is also what the current MA and PDP comp structure is based on. So, in addition to the mandatory plan structure and regulating the comp, I'd look for Med Supp to be thrown into the hopper with MA and PDP regarding marketing compliance on June 1, 2010, as well.

Below is the link to the full posting of the new regulations in the Federal Register.

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-9272.pdf

Lee​

 

[stormtracker]

The writing is on the wall: CMS wants the independent out of the loop. The real issue is, in my mind, how will the seniors be serviced without us? Does the government really think that seniors will go online to enroll? Phone a call center? Call the carriers? Send in their '$1 for the first month' application from the newspaper? What percentage of seniors enroll in their healthplans in this manner? I suspect that in this scenario, the carriers will wind up hiring all of us as temps, to be laid off March 31.

 

[vaxmanid]

The writing is on the wall: CMS wants the independent out of the loop. The real issue is, in my mind, how will the seniors be serviced without us? Does the government really think that seniors will go online to enroll? Phone a call center? Call the carriers? Send in their '$1 for the first month' application from the newspaper? What percentage of seniors enroll in their healthplans in this manner? I suspect that in this scenario, the carriers will wind up hiring all of us as temps, to be laid off March 31.

1) Seniors will be be serviced by CMS and the companies' customer service. That is the goal.
2) CMS doesn't want seniors to make changes. Look at the confusion injected with AEP/OEP. Once upon a time they could change Advantage products at any time.
3) To further #2...MIPPA came along complicating, much less cutting commissions. Then add true-up to the mix to infuriate agents.

Bottom line, CMS does not want agent involvement. To a degree I don't blame Congress and CMS. One has to admit that the bad apples that hop from company to company, combing their book of business created churning. Wasn't that part of your license test?

Agents that have ethics stood on the sidelines with silence instead of complaining to their states department of insurance. Those departmarts also should have been more vigilant in monitoring compliance.

 

[Captive Scmaptive]

1) Seniors will be be serviced by CMS and the companies' customer service. That is the goal.
2) CMS doesn't want seniors to make changes. Look at the confusion injected with AEP/OEP. Once upon a time they could change Advantage products at any time.
3) To further #2...MIPPA came along complicating, much less cutting commissions. Then add true-up to the mix to infuriate agents.

Bottom line, CMS does not want agent involvement. To a degree I don't blame Congress and CMS. One has to admit that the bad apples that hop from company to company, combing their book of business created churning. Wasn't that part of your license test?

Agents that have ethics stood on the sidelines with silence instead of complaining to their states department of insurance. Those departmarts also should have been more vigilant in monitoring compliance.

So let me make sure I understand this...

You think CMS is going to handle all of the customer service AND enrollments and that somehow all agents deserved this because they didn't snitch on a few bad apples to the state insurance departments.

Good lord, son. Go to your room.

 

[stormtracker]

I reinterate: the entire focus of CMS is to get the independent agent out of the senior healthcare loop. Through legislation, we have been cut off from the MA market almost entirely. Others have posted the question as to CMS's next target-- Supps. That is only a matter of time. Farther down the road they will grab at LTC and FE...

 

[Captive Scmaptive]

I reinterate: the entire focus of CMS is to get the independent agent out of the senior healthcare loop. Through legislation, we have been cut off from the MA market almost entirely. Others have posted the question as to CMS's next target-- Supps. That is only a matter of time. Farther down the road they will grab at LTC and FE...

There won't be a farther down the road if they pass the health reform bill that was endorsed by former Enron accountants.

 

[stormtracker]

I can't wait to be enrolling in a government cube, fed by tubes and plugged in to monitoring equipment to ensure that the brainwaves do not deviate from CMS rhetoric...