MGA's Misleading Their Agents?

[taterpeeler]

Look... its here somewhere but with all the info I have gathered I cant access it at my fingertips. I think I read this from either a HHS bulletin or something from humana....

this is the problem with so many agents out there that this info is coming at us at break neck speeds and if you are not following along you are sunk. kinda like a student in class not attending class and then at the end of the year thinking they can pass the final exam... not happing. going to be a tough road for the agent not tuned in

 

[bluediamond]

Well I try to keep up, but the damn thing changes every other day. I just did find a link on healthcare.org blog, but it may be some months old.

 

[Yagents]

I'll let you know. I was telling my MGA about this and he says BCBSFL says differently and if I could provide a good link from HHS or Kaiser stating this he would like to see it because there is an advisory council meeting with BCBSFL he is going to next week and wants to ask, what's up with them telling us differently. Anyone have this in writing?

It's in the math of how they came up with the number of producers expected. (see below) The whole reason they hate agents is they don't want agents to steer clients. Period. If you're not able to offer ALL companies on the exchange, you have conflicts of interest, and not able to do what's best for the client. If BCBS can't see what's coming, they are screwing their agents, holding on tight to keep production up, and it will be too late by the time it hits them in the face.

CMS posts exchange producer registration drafts | LifeHealthPro
CMS is estimating that there may be about 600,000 to 700,000 active U.S. health insurance producers, and that 409,500 live in FFE states, rather than states that will have state-based exchanges.
About 27 percent of the health producers sell products from only one company.
If 85 percent of the remaining, multi-carrier producers go through the producer registration process, the federal exchanges could end up registering 254,095 producers, officials said.

 

[VolAgent]

It's in the math of how they came up with the number of producers expected. (see below) The whole reason they hate agents is they don't want agents to steer clients. Period. If you're not able to offer ALL companies on the exchange, you have conflicts of interest, and not able to do what's best for the client. If BCBS can't see what's coming, they are screwing their agents, holding on tight to keep production up, and it will be too late by the time it hits them in the face.

CMS posts exchange producer registration drafts | LifeHealthPro
CMS is estimating that there may be about 600,000 to 700,000 active U.S. health insurance producers, and that 409,500 live in FFE states, rather than states that will have state-based exchanges.
About 27 percent of the health producers sell products from only one company.
If 85 percent of the remaining, multi-carrier producers go through the producer registration process, the federal exchanges could end up registering 254,095 producers, officials said.

It sounds like they pulled all the health insurance licenses. I bet half of the people with a health license haven't sold a single policy. They have it so they can sell DI, LTCi, Aflac, etc. or they just got it to go with the life license.

 

[bluediamond]

I see in the last two or 3 paragraphs where they briefly discuss single carrier vs multiple. Well I guess I may be out of the business.

Oh thanks for the link. I downloaded the zip file from CMS last night from eba and I didn't catch the wording.

 

[taterpeeler]

I see in the last two or 3 paragraphs where they briefly discuss single carrier vs multiple. Well I guess I may be out of the business.

Oh thanks for the link. I downloaded the zip file from CMS last night from eba and I didn't catch the wording.

this is what I have a problem with... you seem like a good guy and boom, at the stroke of midnight you are out of a job. pitiful

 

[Yagents]

This is for Colorado Exchange (state run). If this is the rules for the NAV's, it will be for agents too. Be sure to read second link

Health exchange will tap brokers but won

http://www.getcoveredco.org/COHBE/m...tance-Network-Conflict-of-Interest-Policy.pdf

The exchange board approved the conflict of interest policy for health guides on Monday. It bars health insurance companies or their employees from serving as health guides and requires guides to disclose potential conflicts of interest to both clients and exchange managers. Guides will be required to provide impartial information about all plans offered on the exchange and will not be allowed to "persuade customers to enroll in any specific health insurance plan" or select a particular provider.

 

[Dave020]

This was brought up at a CA HBEX meeting last summer. The point was made that carrier direct sales units are compromised for exchange sales because they cannot meet the "impartial information on all plans offered within the exchange" requirement.

 

[AllenChicago]

This is for Colorado Exchange (state run). If this is the rules for the NAV's, it will be for agents too. Be sure to read second link

Health exchange will tap brokers but won

http://www.getcoveredco.org/COHBE/m...tance-Network-Conflict-of-Interest-Policy.pdf

The exchange board approved the conflict of interest policy for health guides on Monday. It bars health insurance companies or their employees from serving as health guides and requires guides to disclose potential conflicts of interest to both clients and exchange managers. Guides will be required to provide impartial information about all plans offered on the exchange and will not be allowed to "persuade customers to enroll in any specific health insurance plan" or select a particular provider.

The story at the first link draws a clear distinction between a "guide" and a "broker". Thank goodness most of us are brokers! We can give advice and guidance. The title of "Guides" is misleading for those poor souls. They will spend at least 90 minutes with each shopper, get paid little, and can't give advice, or guide-ance.

If only a few companies are on any given exchange, as expected, there won't be much explaining to do beyond the 4 metal levels. The 80/20 coinsurance/cost sharing seems to be the hardest concept for people (and many agents) to grasp quickly.

I wonder what new onerous requirements and standards health insurers will need to meet in order to sell on the exchange? The SOB (summary of benefits) comes to mind as one of the latest requirements from HHS. I've only seen two companies offer them, and neither of them are enforcing that the applicant receive their SOB at the point-of-sale as HHS directed in Sept 2012.

Because our Federal Government is running the overall show, the number of disclosures that the applicant must sign off on will likely be a real burden and cause lots of Computer Crashes due to multiple links that will need to be clicked on and Secure Socket Layer protocol encryption requirements. I get this now with Humana's relatively simple Click-Open-Read-CloseWindow "read your disclosure" embedded application links. Add in any state-specific requirements and the public will have yet another layer of challenges to overcome with this ACA debacle.
-AC

 

[jwoo689]

Are the days of a writing business through a Cga and them taking half over? How do Ma, Ga, Cga fit into the picture post 2014? I thought I read somewhere an article that said that model would no longer be used, but that is the only way to write Florida blue.