I guess what bothers me about this agent compensation issue is that it seems to never be brought to a conclusion.
Seems CMS is continually going after this issue because it is a "soft target". If agents were not in the mix, the plans would be spending more for advertising and hiring "home office" agents with very questionable results.
I would think the issues of double digit increases in drug pricing, cutting drugs off formularies, doctors and hospitals not accepting coverages (especially in the middle of the coverage period), 50% + cost increases by plans, and many other problems would take priority over what salesmen are being paid.
Last year I was working in a Wal-Mart store, where a competitor had a booth the previous year. A mental patient (and it was darn apparent he was a mental patient) came screaming at me that "we" had caused him to have a mental relapse. After getting him to realize that "I" was not "we", he was not nearly as ready to whip my butt. I actually think he had a gun in his coat pocket, because he kept his right hand in his coat all the time.
After getting him to slightly calm down, I found what had happened. The hospital where he had been getting mental treatment decided as of July 1, 2007 they were no longer accepting his plan. BUT nobody told him (if he would have understood is questionable), AND they kept treating him.
He had run up over $70,000 of bills with this hospital. He did not and could not pay, his plan did not pay because the hospital would not bill the plan, and Medicare would not pay because he had a Part C plan. Since nobody paid them, the hospital turned to a collection agency to collect from him. This was a very dangerous thing to do. If I had been the salesperson that enrolled him, I would have had a very bad situation on my hands--at no fault of mine.
The man still had his insurance, but nobody to pay the bills.
The point I am trying to make here is that CMS should be helping try to solve problems such as this instead of continually going after an agent's paycheck.
|
New CMS Rules
Linear Mode
