Editor’s Note: Agent’s Looking for Information on Initial Versus Renewal Commissions Click the following link: July 2nd, 2009 UPDATE: Final Guidance is IN!!!
A few minutes ago, I received the final company data to complete my spreadsheet of broker commissions for the 2009 Medicare Advantage selling season. I will complete the spreadsheet tonight and have it ready to send out to agents first thing tomorrow morning.
At this point, all commissions are subject to CMS review and they can approve, ammend or reject the commissions which are filed by the carriers.
4/28/09 EDITOR’S NOTE: Those insurance agents looking for information on the “initial” or “second” commission payment on “new to Medicare” and “new to Medicare Advantage” enrollees should refer to my most recent blog post by CLICKING HERE!
6/16/09 The latest on the “New to Medicare” “New to Medicare Advantage” saga continues here.
This is report #2 of 3. website address is: kaisernetwork.org
Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report
Medicare | President-Elect Obama, Sen. Reid Focus on Scaling Back Medicare Advantage Program
[Jan 15, 2009]
Democrats, led by President-elect Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), have signaled their intent to “scale back” the Medicare Advantage program, The Hill reports. Obama on Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week” identified MA as an example of “programs that don’t work,” adding that the program “doesn’t necessarily make people on Medicare healthier.” Reid said, “Since Bush’s Medicare bill went into effect, insurance companies, HMOs and other managed care entities have made $15 billion to purposely destroy Medicare.”
According to The Hill, congressional Democrats have pledged to cut $50 billion in federal subsidies to the MA program, which offers private health insurance plans to more than 10 million of the 45 million Medicare beneficiaries. MA cost the government 13% more per beneficiary on average than the regular Medicare plan in 2008, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Reid wants to reduce subsidies to “bring the payments more closely in line” with the cost of each beneficiary on traditional Medicare, a Reid spokesperson wrote in an e-mail.
I have several articles to show my fellow agents, below is 1 of 3, all are updated reports. “MA’s are Over for agents and Insurance companies, but read all 3 of my reports to see why.
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Election 2008 | Obama Says He Remains Committed To Elimination of MA Plans, Reforms to Entitlement Programs
[Jan 12, 2009]
President-elect Barack Obama on Sunday in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” said that, although the current economic recession will not allow him to fulfill some campaign promises, he remains committed to the elimination of Medicare Advantage plans, CQ Politics reports. According to Obama, MA plans are an example of government initiatives that do not work, and the plans should receive lower payments.
Obama said, “We are spending a lot of money subsidizing the insurance companies around something called Medicare Advantage, a program that gives them subsidies to accept Medicare recipients but doesn’t necessarily make people on Medicare healthier.” He added that the elimination of MA plans in combination with other efforts to reduce costs could provide as much as $200 billion to spend on expansion of health care. Obama said, “What our challenge is going to be is identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don’t work, and making things that we have more efficient.”
Is your spreadsheet of broker commissions for the 2009 Medicare Advantage available to independent agents? If so, please email it to me .
Am a new agent, awaiting a release from an FMO and considering what to do next for med advantage/complete and supp sales.
Just found your blog.
Regards,
Marilyn
Per app tracker this morning, it appears as though they might have finally done a catch up commission run last evening. I am able to print a commission statement and am expecting that there will be a direct deposit early next week. I have not fully reveiwed the detail yet but it appears that we were paid the correct CMS renewal amount and no CMS blessed new have been issued. We are finally not showing a negative interim payment reversal only. We are one of the agents that have not received anything since the end of December. In reviewing with other agents and what has processed, it appears that others also were processed but were still overpaid and chargebacks will be in order but at least they have now processed payments as they also had not been paid since December. All of this, of course, is contingent on a payment actually being received next week. Just an FYI for anyone else that has been waiting; check app tracker, 2nd tab, statements.
Dear Fellow agents, “Class action lawsuit”
I’m an experienced agent of 28 years and have had to sue several Insurance companies over the years for breach of contract. As of today I contacted my Class Action attorney and asked him to represent myself and several fellow agents in a suit against Coventry Health Care for failing to pay Med Advantage commissions.
We have commissions due to us dating back into November 2008 and our contract states that Coventry will pay us in 2 weeks from CMS approval. Well 8 weeks later, no hope in site, but Coventry sure can “pass the buck.”
I’m experienced in these kind of suits and after I talk with my attorney again on 2/4/09 I think he’ll take this suit on.
“IF” you are actually interested in joining this suit, email and let me know. I will provide you with more informtion as to what and why we are “Actually” not getting paid. My attorney specializes in these type suits and will not charge us any out of pocket fees, he will work on “percentage.”
Email me at: mann8261@bellsouth.net, give me a day or so to reply please. “We are being ripped off by the Insurance carriers and the dirty politics of this plan.
I am for getting together en masse to protest. I work out of St. Petersburg. Any one close by or any ideas how we can get a group together to protest the CMS? today’s date:1/30/09
What are agents who supply top-notch service, travel to far destinations with expenses unreimbursed for gas, conventions and medical insurance, overhead on small business, etc, supposed to do to survive now that the CMS has cut agents’ commission back so badly?
I agree we should all ban together and protest. How is a person to meet one’s bills when your income is being taken under your nose?
Someone is making out well and it’s not the agents!
I think alot of agents are losing the heart for it. Very sad. The thing is, that I haven’t found a Medicare Beneficiary yet that is happy with the option of deciding this for themselves with only the help of TV, radio and 800# Customer Service. Very sad… It’s amazing to me that there isn’t any talk about the fluctuating benefit packages from year to year and perhaps some consistency in increases. They tell people to review, they tell people to change to what’s best for their situation as their changes may have changed but when they do it’s an agent issue.
i have lost the heart for it. its to hard to lv out for an appt to get paid 20$ here and there. maybe final expense will cover me. I want to go after the companies and cms. We need a union. I honestly think the agents were used initially , to get the product out and now since its common, they can take over using tv and radio, along with customer service.
sad/mad guy here.
ps. when do i need get the 160$ m.o.?
200 miles x .505 (IRS Reimb for 2008) would be $101 in auto expense ONLY and if you are an independent agent and don’t enroll, you receive a big $0 for your effort. I hope you get more than 1 in the area when you go that far. If you count your costs of overhead, utilities, licensing, computer, health insurance, telephones, postage to send out those SACFs ahead of time, etc. you would have to do a heck of a lot of enrollments in the AEP to even make this work. Being a Coventry Torch Club member are you getting any information on commission issuance?
My average appt is within 25 miles and last 2 hours. Now you can’t put appts back to back as most appts are not right next door to each other so I can only do 3 to 5 appts a day during the AEP depending on the locations. I did one appt that was right under 200 miles round trip and that particular appt did not result in an enrollment as it wasn’t the best thing for the prospect given their situation. I do not see how I could make a business decision to continue this line of work if most of my appts were that far away. I am not sure yet if it works even with most appts in a closer area.