Servicing Existing Clients During ARP

aheff

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I am an independent broker, with just one full time (licensed) assistance. My business- approx. 50%Med Sup/Part D and 50% Med Adv. I try to work extremely efficiently, and run very hard, but I am envisioning this upcoming AEP where something has got to give- either servicing existing clients will drop (and I will lose more than an "acceptable" level of clients) or I will not have time to get the amount of new clients that I have in the past. One answer is to hire someone else, but while I can keep him/her busy for 3/4 months, I would not want to retain her after that. I am sure many of you have this same problem and reaching out how you deal with this. Thanks.
 
I am an independent broker, with just one full time (licensed) assistance. My business- approx. 50%Med Sup/Part D and 50% Med Adv. I try to work extremely efficiently, and run very hard, but I am envisioning this upcoming AEP where something has got to give- either servicing existing clients will drop (and I will lose more than an "acceptable" level of clients) or I will not have time to get the amount of new clients that I have in the past. One answer is to hire someone else, but while I can keep him/her busy for 3/4 months, I would not want to retain her after that. I am sure many of you have this same problem and reaching out how you deal with this. Thanks.

Focus on Pareto's 80/20. Might be time to shave something down or cut it out all together. But you need to determine what it is you do that's most profitable. Or often it's not just profit but also what you enjoy.

Considering you mentioned time to get to new clients though I'm guessing it's profit. Maybe going after more Med Supp clients which require far less servicing, and letting go of some of that Part D if that's what is bogging you down.

In other words replace anything that pays less or takes up too much of your time with things that create automated income. I'm a huge fan of NOT trading life hours for income so that's just my two cents.
 
Thanks. Just to clarify, I only do Part D for clients who are purchasing Med Sup.
 
Thanks. Just to clarify, I only do Part D for clients who are purchasing Med Sup.

Its the MA clients that are the most time consuming especially when they lose a doc or the plan goes to hell in the following year and they want to keep going over every plan over and over again.Because what they had before no longer exists and they just don't want to believe they can't get what they had with same low copays dental vision and GYM and have all their docs and still pay $0 premium
 
Focus on Pareto's 80/20.

I think the challenge with that is Medicare products are a lot of slightly attention demanding customers. I don't know aheff's book, but it's not uncommon to have a lot of customers that individually might not need more than 30-60 minutes, but when AEP rolls around that can be incredibly punishing.

aheff, I know some agents will send out mail and run some type of a seminar to try to get them all grouped in a room since you're answering a lot of the same questions. I know it's scary to send out mail, but I know some agents will just send out a letter covering anything relevant to be more proactive about it.
 
I am an independent broker, with just one full time (licensed) assistance. My business- approx. 50%Med Sup/Part D and 50% Med Adv. I try to work extremely efficiently, and run very hard, but I am envisioning this upcoming AEP where something has got to give- either servicing existing clients will drop (and I will lose more than an "acceptable" level of clients) or I will not have time to get the amount of new clients that I have in the past. One answer is to hire someone else, but while I can keep him/her busy for 3/4 months, I would not want to retain her after that. I am sure many of you have this same problem and reaching out how you deal with this. Thanks.

That time of year is always a challenge. My book consists of about 70% Med Supp and 30% MAPD. And this past year REALLY sucked because a local MAPD went out of business leaving me with the task of moving nearly 80 people who otherwise would have not moved. Add that to the normal migration and the several hundred Part D plan comparisons and it meant not as many new clients for me. I still got some, just not as many as I would have liked.

A few years ago I taught my wife how to run Part D comparisons. She handles the majority of those for me now. She actually runs them all during AEP, but I inevitably get the person who forgot about a medication which requires a new comparison to be run on the spot. This has helped with my time. Assume for a second that each comparison takes 5 minutes. I probably have 500 or so to do each AEP. So my wife saves me 2,500 minutes. Or a little better than 40 hours of work. This allows me to focus on running the MAPD comparisons and new clients. But as I mentioned, this past year was a struggle because of the plan termination. And I'm afraid this coming year might be similar since Cigna is having their issues. I hope that isn't the case.

Just as Bevo said, you have to prioritize what's the most profitable for you. This is why I now let my wife handle the Part D comparisons during AEP. It's the least profitable line of business for me. Especially when some of those people are enrolled in plans where I don't even get paid.
 
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