December 30, 2011 by Craig
Do you need insurance product training? RitterIm.com has an up-to-date posting of all the top carriers’ trainings on our event calendar. Registration is “one click” away at Ritter Insurance’s “Events’ Calendar”! (You must be logged in to register!)
- Monday, January 2, 2012; No scheduled trainings at this time.
- Tuesday, January 3, 2012; Baltimore Life Silver Guard INSpeed Call Center Process Training webinar is open to all Baltimore licensed agents.
- Wednesday, January 4, 2012; Bravo New Agent Training 2012 seminars are being held in Baltimore, MD and Newark, DE. Ritter Insurance Marketing will be hosting ‘Don’t Be Locked Out During Lock-In!’ webinar that is open to all agents.
- Thursday, January 5, 2012; Ritter Insurance Marketing will be hosting a webinar on ‘CSI Product and Lead Program Review’. The webinar is open to all agents.
- Friday, January 6, 2012; No scheduled trainings at this time.
- Monday, January 9, 2012; No scheduled trainings at this time.
Posted in All, Baltimore Life, Bravo, Education/Training, Final Expense Life, Individual Major Med, Insurance Companies, Insurance Products, Medicare Supplement, States, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
December 21, 2011 by Craig
House Republicans indicated that they will not propose a stand alone “Doc Fix” to avert a 27% cut to physician’s Medicare Fee Schedule. Instead, the fix will be tied to the bill which extends the Payroll Tax cut.
Here is the story at Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-20/doctors-27-medicare-pay-cut-won-t-be-unlinked-from-tax-bill-in-u-s-house.html
Posted in CMS | Leave a Comment »
December 16, 2011 by Craig
- Monday, December 19, 2011; Coventry, Florida NDP Broker CCP Product Training seminar is being held in Hollywood, FL. 2012 Care Improvement Plus Training seminar is being held in Springfield, IL.
- Tuesday, December 20, 2011; Baltimore Life Tele-sales Training for Silver Guard Products Using INSpeed webinar is open to all Baltimore licensed agents. 2012 Care Improvement Plus Training seminar is being held in Rogers, AR, Bluffs, IA, Peoria, IL, Buffalo, NY, Tyler, TX, and Woodway, TX.
- Wednesday, December 21,2011; 2012 Care Improvement Plus Training is being held in Smith, AR, Des Moines, IA, Prairie, TX, and San Antonio, TX.
- Thursday, December 22, 2011; No scheduled training at this time.
- Friday, December 23, 2011; No scheduled training at this time.
- Monday, December 26th; Coventry, Florida NDP Broker CCP Product Training seminar is being held in Miami, FL.
Posted in All, Baltimore Life, Care Improvement Plus, Coventry, Education/Training, Final Expense Life, Individual Major Med, Insurance Companies, Insurance Products, Medicare Supplement, States | Leave a Comment »
December 14, 2011 by Craig
Here is the story from The Hill. It seems highly likely that this bill is DOA in the senate, so this is just another step in the process of getting the Medicare doc fix resolved.
Posted in All, News | Leave a Comment »
December 12, 2011 by Craig
Highmark is selling off their Medicare claims processing business in order to clear a regulatory path regarding their acquisition of West Penn Allegheny. It appears that Highmark is more interested in vertical expansion within the health care space than growing horizontally with ancillary Medicare service businesses. A Highmark EVP is quoted as saying that they plan to expand more into the medical provider business.
I’ve noted the vertical expansion into the health care space by managed care companies in prior posts, for example, Humana and United Healthcare.
Here is an article from the Pittsburgh Tribune.
Posted in Highmark, News, Pennsylvania | Leave a Comment »
December 12, 2011 by Craig
Based on current law, Physicians in the Medicare system will see a 27% cut in their Medicare fee schedule on January 1st. Congress is looking for a way to avert this pay cut.
The Washington Post lists the alternative proposals on the table.
Here is a good article from the Politico which gives a history of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) for Medicare’s Physician fee schedule and how Congress was able to avert these cuts in the past.
It seems that the 2 sides are pretty far apart right now and the “Doc Fix” is getting tangled in with the extension of the Social Security wage tax cut, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out as Congress is currently scheduled to be out of session for their Christmas recess.
Posted in All, News | 1 Comment »
December 8, 2011 by Craig
Yesterday was crazy as all of the carriers where trying to interpret the CMS guidance from Tuesday night. We were getting different interim guidance from all of our carriers at different times during the day. It seems that AHIP has clarified CMS’ intent and now I’m pretty consistently seeing this guidance:
Based on additional clarification from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS):
- Agents must cease all Annual Election Period (AEP) marketing and sales activities after December 7.
- Agents are NOT allowed to contact their existing book of business for AEP sales or accept applications if the consumer was unsuccessful in enrolling due to capacity constraints.
- If you do encounter consumers that experienced this issue, you must direct them to 1-800-MEDICARE or the local State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIP) office. Under no circumstances may agents take new AEP applications after December 7, 2011.
In the event you receive AEP applications from consumers today or later, please continue to process the application and the company’s enrollment department will determine eligibility.
Posted in All, CMS, News | 1 Comment »
December 7, 2011 by Craig
MOST CURRENT UPDATE HERE!
Original post follows:
As previously blogged, CMS issued new guidance last night. Plans are still trying to interpret the guidance. I will be following this closely all day today.
The AEP extension will only apply to Medicare beneficiaries who reached out to enroll in a plan on December 7th or prior and who were not able to be assisted on or before December 7th due to high call volumes (or difficulty in accessing CMS’ online enrollment center).
End_of_AEP_Processing-20111206
Posted in CMS | 2 Comments »
December 7, 2011 by Craig
Last night CMS issued some guidance for Medicare Advantage and Part D enrollments. This guidance relates to this plan year only. CMS told the plans that they can accept PAPER enrollments with a POSTMARK of December 8, 2011 or earlier, regardless when they are received by the plan.
Former guidance was that the PAPER enrollment must be RECEIVED by the plan by December 7th, 2011 and that the POSTMARK was not relevant.
The guidance also accounted for some late enrollments for SHIPs, but this particular guidance didn’t include insurance agents. They were able to return calls and obtain completed enrollment requests up through midnight local time on Saturday, December 10th.
Posted in All, CMS, Medicare Advantage | 1 Comment »
December 6, 2011 by Craig
This comes from today’s USA Today online newspaper. Some of the improvements that Medicare beneficiaries have seen are:
1. Rebates from pharmaceutical companies in the doughnut hole. Beneficiaries now pay 50% for brand name drugs and 86% for generic drugs.
2. Reduced cost sharing for preventative drugs.
3. Stable pricing for both Medicare advantage and Part D benefits.
Posted in All, CMS, News | Leave a Comment »
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