Shifting the Burden to the Client

[moonlightandmargaritas]

How many of you would still make all the phone calls necessary to fix the inevitable problems caused by the client's delay?

Ever consider finding some better quality clients?

 

[FLM2]

Ever consider finding some better quality clients?

I have plenty of them.

It's the system, not the client. If they don't pay the 1st months' premium on or before the first premium is due date the policy is automatically cancelled. After that there is a 90 day grace period, neither of which makes any sense.

Does every one of your clients have money readily available to pay health insurance premiums 2 weeks before it is due?

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

Does every one of your clients have money readily available to pay health insurance premiums 2 weeks before it is due?

Many pay several months ahead.

 

[OregonDave]

I have a client whose wife was dropped from pregnancy Medicaid so wanted to add her to his plan. Of course this meant a new application and a new policy with the same carrier (UHC).

He delayed until just before June 15th but we finally got it done except he didn't want to pay the premium yet.

I send him an email on June 19th and tell him that his current plan needs to be cancelled but I won't do it until he pays for the new plan and that the current plan wouldn't be cancelled as of July 1st unless he did that promptly.

He emails me today at 5PM to submit payment and cancel the policy, which I do, except the earliest termination date for the current policy is, of course, July 13th.

So now there are two policies in the system for him and we all know this will get completely screwed up, right?

I am not willing to do anything more to fix these kinds of problems and sent him an email confirming the payment and termination but also told him it was up to him to fix any problems due to system errors.

How many of you would still make all the phone calls necessary to fix the inevitable problems caused by the client's delay?

"Call the Exchange if you want to live."

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I would have gladly done that but his first app was through a carrier direct link so no Marketplace account so I had to create a new application for the SEP.

What I've learned this year, I think, is that without a Marketplace account all of these changes for Marketplace plans become really difficult, next year I will just work directly through the Marketplace for my clients who purchase through the Marketplace and create accounts for all of my clients so changes are much easier. Am I doing something wrong in this?

My understanding is that if the client allows you to login for them you may complete the entire application for them online, however they must create the account from their own PC and IP address.

 

[Sherota1]

You can login for the client only if they are face to face with you. Agents are not permitted to know the password of consumers on the FFM. That was an issues that was solved by using Web Broker sites. But it doesn't solve all of the issues as we can plainly see. There should be a disclaimer that they could sign to allow us to access their accounts with their permission. It would make things a lot easier or we should be able to access it freely from the Web Broker Portal after being authorized as their agent through the Marketplace. Too many mistakes have happened on my applications when they are updated by an anonymous CSR who will never admit to making a mistake. The other drawback is you do not have access to the application summary after submitting the application so there is mo way of knowing what mistakes are made until it's too late.