Some ripples were sent thought the agent community last summer when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued guidance on agent compensation requirements for Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug Plan (PDP) enrollments for 2015 effective dates.
Chief among the changes were that carriers were not permitted to pay commissions in advance (prior to plan effective year) for enrollments with a Jan. 1, 2015 effective date or after, including commissions for AEP applications received from Oct. 15-Dec. 7.
Agents are still paid 12-month advances on the open enrollment business, but now the payments are not received until after the policies’ effective date in January. This has become more of a stumbling block for newer, less-established agents, while veteran agents typically are in a better financial position to wait on the commissions.
“There were some complaints, but mostly from newer agents still building a book of business that rely heavy on timely commission payments,” Pekarsky said. “This is the first time all carriers were required to pay commissions January 1 or after but there are some carriers that always waited until after January 1. So this rule wasn’t a shocker for all. We didn’t necessarily see agents steering away from selling MAs and PDPs, but noticed that there were more multiple-product sales made including hospital indemnity and dental plans than in the past years that was possibly a result of this new CMS rule.”
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1) Doing a search on the forum I found this article....Does this still apply?
It takes 3 months to see any commission from AEP?
One of the reason I got into Med Supps was because of the quick payout. I did ACA last year and it took forever. Im still waiting for some payouts!
I wanted to open a small office and have agents close deals and pay out their commissions from the payout but if it takes 3 months....that kind of kills my plans!
2) Is AEP really that serious? When I sold STMs and ACA policies during OEP it was like shooting fish in a bucket. Is this the same case? Super easy laydowns?
----------
P.S. not selling MAPDs...
just good old Med Supps!
(I mean that is AEP right? People can have the option to switch into new policies [even though they could switch anytime all year])
Chief among the changes were that carriers were not permitted to pay commissions in advance (prior to plan effective year) for enrollments with a Jan. 1, 2015 effective date or after, including commissions for AEP applications received from Oct. 15-Dec. 7.
Agents are still paid 12-month advances on the open enrollment business, but now the payments are not received until after the policies’ effective date in January. This has become more of a stumbling block for newer, less-established agents, while veteran agents typically are in a better financial position to wait on the commissions.
“There were some complaints, but mostly from newer agents still building a book of business that rely heavy on timely commission payments,” Pekarsky said. “This is the first time all carriers were required to pay commissions January 1 or after but there are some carriers that always waited until after January 1. So this rule wasn’t a shocker for all. We didn’t necessarily see agents steering away from selling MAs and PDPs, but noticed that there were more multiple-product sales made including hospital indemnity and dental plans than in the past years that was possibly a result of this new CMS rule.”
*****************
1) Doing a search on the forum I found this article....Does this still apply?
It takes 3 months to see any commission from AEP?
One of the reason I got into Med Supps was because of the quick payout. I did ACA last year and it took forever. Im still waiting for some payouts!
I wanted to open a small office and have agents close deals and pay out their commissions from the payout but if it takes 3 months....that kind of kills my plans!
2) Is AEP really that serious? When I sold STMs and ACA policies during OEP it was like shooting fish in a bucket. Is this the same case? Super easy laydowns?
----------
P.S. not selling MAPDs...
just good old Med Supps!
(I mean that is AEP right? People can have the option to switch into new policies [even though they could switch anytime all year])
