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Archive for February, 2011

Early Returns On Medicare Prescription Drug Plan 2011 Enrollment Data

Posted in All, CMS, News, Part D on February 15, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Here is a list of the top PDP plans for 2011 grouped by Parent organization and sorted by 2011 enrollment.  Year over year growth is in the far right column.  I only included plans with at least 10,000 members as of 2011.

2010vs2011Summary_PDP

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Early Returns on Medicare Advantange 2011 Enrollment Data

Posted in 2011 MA PLans, All, News on February 15, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Our database guru sliced and diced the Feb 2011 versus Feb 2010 enrollment data to come up with the big winners and losers for 2011 MA enrollment.  Here is a copy of the PDF which is aggregated by Parent Organization and then sorted by 2011 enrollment. 

Medicare Advantage 2011 versus 2010

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Today is the Last Day of the Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period

Posted in All, CMS, News on February 14, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Today, February 14th, 2011, is the last day of the MADP (Medicare Advantage Disenrollment period).  Those with Medicare Advantage plans will not be allowed to disenroll after today in the absence of some other Special Election Period.

Keep in mind, using the MADP does not trigger “guarantee issue” rights for Medigap.  Here is a piece CMS put out to clarify some confusion on the MADP.  (hopefully we won’t have this again next year!)

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Implementation of Health Care Reform Law Seen as Central to Current Budget Debate

Posted in All, CMS on February 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

President Obama will unveil his proposed budget for 2012, however, Congress may use the budget process to choke off funds for implementation of Health Care Reform.

The Hill.com follows this story.

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Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) Letter to Kathleen Sebelius on Agent Compensation in the Individual and Small Group Markets

Posted in All, CMS, News on February 13, 2011 | 5 Comments »

NAHU has been working with Congressman, Mike Rogers to address the impact of MLR regulations on Broker compensation.  Recently, he sent a letter to the Head of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, asking what actions HHS has taken to address the NAIC’s concerns on the impact of MLR regulations on broker comp which is diminishing the independent agent’s ability to service this market.  Here is a copy of the letter.

Here is another link:  http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/nahuw/downloads/Rogers%20MLR%20letter%202%2010%2011.pdf

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Insurance Product Training – Feb 14th – Feb 18th

Posted in 2011 MA PLans, All, Baltimore Life, Coventry, Education/Training, Final Expense Life, Insurance Companies, Molina Medicare, States, Training/Certification on February 9, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Do you need insurance product training? RitterIm.com has an up-to-today posting of all the top carriers trainings on the events calendar. Registration is “one click” away at Ritter Insurance’s “Events’ Calendar”! (You must be logged in to register!)

  • Monday, Feb. 14th;  There are no scheduled trainings at this time. Happy Valentine’s Day!
  • Tuesday, Feb. 15th;  2011 Coventry GHP-CCP Product Training seminar is open to agents in the St. Louis, MO area. Baltimore Life Tele-sales Training for Silver Guard Products Using INSpeed webinar is open to all licensed agents. Molina Medicare 2011 Broker Training seminar is open to agents in the Sacramento, CA area.
  • Wednesday, Feb. 16th;  Ritter Insurance Marketing and Coventry are hosting a webinar to discuss Coventry’s SNP Plans. The webinar is open to all agents. Molina Medicare 2011 Broker Training seminar is open to agents in the Troy, MI area. Molina’s webinar training is open to agents in MI and NM.
  • Thursday, Feb. 17th;  There are no scheduled trainings at this time.  
  • Friday, Feb. 18th;  Molina Medicare 2011 Broker Training webinar is open to agents in WA.

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Humana Shares Fall on Higher Medical Costs, Company Raises 2011 Guidance

Posted in All, Humana, News on February 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Humana raised it’s outlook for 2011 Revenue and Profit in light of better than expected enrollment for its Medicare Advantage and Part D products.  The fourth quarter profit fell by 57%, mainly due to acquisition expense related to the company’s purchase of the health care provider, Concentra.

Here is a link to the Wall Street Journal Story.

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Coventry Posts Higher Earnings on Lower Revenue, but Stock Price Falls on Lower outlook for 2011

Posted in All, Coventry, News on February 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Here is the story from Bloomberg.  Coventry’s stock price fell by 4% in spite of better than expected fourth quarter earnings.  The share price remains near a 52 week high, however, as earnings for the fourth quarter were strong on lower revenue.  Earnings benefited from lower expenses including lower than expected claims cost.  The company’s outlook for 2011 sent the stock down for the day.

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US House of Representatives Seen Blocking Implementation Money for Health Care Reform Bill

Posted in All, News on February 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Here is the story from Reuters.  Since the House failed to repeal the health care reform law, the new strategy will be to limit or eliminate funding to slow the process of building the governmental structure to implement and regulate.

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What is an Accountable Care Organization (ACO)?

Posted in All, CMS, News on February 7, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Here is a good article I got on what an Accountable Care Organization is:  Boston Globe Online (Chad, thanks for the link!)

ACO’s, I’m sure, will grow in importance in the coming years.  Soon, CMS will be putting out some guidance with more details on how they will work.

If you’ve been following my blog for a long time, you might recall I started talking about ACO’s a little less than 2 years ago.  Now, ACO’s are all the buzz with Medical Providers.  ACO’s still have me scratching my head a bit.  On one hand, it “smells” an awful lot like managed care to me, but the Head of CMS clearly states that ACO’s are NOT managed care.  Maybe this is a case of “a rose by any other name”??

I’ll post more once the regs come out and I’ve had a chance to absorb what all this means!!

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