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.
If I’m reading this correctly, the carrier submits all of 2008-09
enrollments through March 31, 09 and that Medicare will pay the commissions based on thier audit.
In English please.
If anyone finds out if there is legal recourse for agents on this problem, let me know? I agree with all of you, this has been a nightmare enrollment period. Does anyone know when the remainder of our commissions will be released?
Count me in! This CMS nightmare is killing the Seniors. Who will be handling the Class Action Suit?
I am getting some of my info from: kaisernetwork.org This is post 3 of 4
[Nov 11, 2008]
CMS on Monday revised its guidelines for compensation for health insurance agents and brokers who market Medicare Advantage and Medicare prescription drug benefit plans, CQ HealthBeat reports (Carey, CQ HealthBeat, 11/10).
CMS in September issued new rules governing insurance companies, agents and brokers regarding the marketing of Medicare prescription drug plans and MA plans. The rules stipulated, among other things, that commission for sales agents would be required to conform to a structure used in other parts of the insurance industry. First-year commission for a new customer could not exceed 200% of the commission for the next five years, in order to remove the incentive for agents to “churn” beneficiaries between different plans each year.
However, because the regulations were just taking effect, some plans increased commissions in order to lock them in for the next five years. House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health Chair Pete Stark (D-Calif.) in a letter to CMS wrote that insurers were “gaming” the new regulations by raising commissions to levels “that far exceed any previous year’s commissions” (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/24).
The new guidelines revise those from September by stating that agents and brokers should receive compensation that reflects fair-market value based on previous commissions, adjusted for inflation for similar products in the same geographic area. In addition, compensation for policy renewals must be exactly half of the compensation paid for that beneficiary in the initial year of the six-year compensation cycle established in the September rules. Agents and brokers who enroll beneficiaries in plans that do not meet their needs should receive reduced compensation, according to the new principles.
The new rules also place similar compensation limits on Field Marketing Organizations — local or national companies that employ agents or brokers to assist plans in marketing and selling their Medicare products. Before the compensation is disbursed, FMOs would be required to submit to CMS their compensation structures for the previous three years plus the compensation structure they are implementing for 2009. That information also must be provided to agents, brokers or other third parties under contract to market the FMO’s plans. Future rate or structure changes could not take effect without prior CMS approval.
Can anyone tell me what medicare states what happens with you leave an agency and you are an “LOA” Lic. only agent. Does the commissions follow the agent after getting a release and before this new rule applys in Spet 2010.
J:
CMS would not intervene in this case and allow any contractual issues to play out in the court system. As long as the MCO is paying the agency properly, they would not get involved in a dispute between LOA and Agency.
Craig