Browse by topic
Search the blog
    Subscribe to our news
    Subscribe

    Transitional Plans Extended One More Year

    April 18, 2018
    On Monday, April 9, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that the transitional plans in the individual and small group markets, also known as “grandmothered” plans, will be extended one more year through the end of 2019. This is welcome news for clients who currently have a transitional policy, but it does feel a bit like the government is crying wolf. Every year, clients worry that they will need to search for another solution since they are likely to see their rates increase if they are forced to move to an ACA-compliant metallic plan, and every year they learn that they can hang on to their current coverage a little longer. This year is no different.
    Read

    4 Great Reasons to Help People (even if you won’t receive commission)

    April 9, 2018
    We all work for a paycheck, and most of us can’t afford to do a lot of pro-bono work. That said, there can be some real benefits to helping people even when you won’t be paid for the sale. Below are just a few examples, and all point to the fact that when you focus on taking care of the client, the money will take care of itself.
    Read

    Short Term Plans May Soon Be Longer

    April 5, 2018
    On February 20, 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services issued proposed regulations that would extend the maximum coverage period for short-term plans from three months to twelve months. The rule change comes at the request of President Trump, whose October 12 executive order encouraged the Secretaries of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to “consider proposing regulations or revising guidance, consistent with law, to expand the availability of STLDI” (short-term, limited-duration insurance).
    Read

    Overcoming Consumer Apathy when Selling Health Insurance

    March 23, 2018
    Here’s a question: How much time should agents spend trying to convince people that they need health insurance?
    Read

    New Medicare Cards are Coming Soon!

    March 16, 2018
    Have you heard the news? Medicare beneficiaries will soon be receiving new Medicare cards with a new Medicare number. A 2015 law requires CMS to remove Social Security Numbers (SSNs) from all Medicare cards by April 2019 and replace them with a new Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). The new cards will be sent out over a 12-month period beginning this April.
    Read

    CHIP FINALLY Gets Reauthorized

    March 5, 2018
    The Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, has been in the news recently as lawmakers debate the future of this popular safety net program for children of lower-income families. The program, which has been around since 1997, has enjoyed nearly universal bipartisan support from the beginning, but that support has come into question recently as Congress allowed funding for CHIP to expire four months ago and seemed to be in no hurry to reauthorize it. As worried parents waited to see what our lawmakers would do, CHIP reauthorization took a back seat to tax reform.
    Read

    Medicare Premiums Vary By Income

    February 22, 2018
    If you sell Medicare supplements, Medicare Advantage plans, or Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, you’ve probably been asked on multiple occasions how much Medicare Part B costs. If you’re like a lot of agents, you may have answered with the standard Part B premium amount, which is $134 per month in 2018. This can be dangerous.
    Read

    Congress Postpones Three ACA Taxes

    February 16, 2018
    For the past several years, the insurance industry has been urging Congress to eliminate three unpopular taxes that were designed to help pay for the Affordable Care Act. They finally listened… sort of. While the taxes have not been eliminated, the House and Senate did vote to postpone the Health Insurance Tax (HIT), the tax on High Cost Health Plans, better known as the Cadillac Tax, and the Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Tax. This was part of the January 22 deal to keep the government open for three weeks. The same bill also reauthorized the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) for six years.
    Read

    Medicare Part D Notification Requirements for Your Group Clients

    February 5, 2018
    If you sell group health insurance, there are a couple Medicare notification requirements your clients need to be aware of. The law requires that companies whose group health plans include prescription drug coverage to notify Medicare-eligible policyholders whether their prescription drug benefit is “creditable,” which means that the coverage is expected to pay on average as much as the standard Medicare prescription drug coverage.
    Read

    Dependent Rates Soar in 2018

    February 1, 2018
    As you probably noticed during this year’s open enrollment period, the rates for children under age 21 have increased significantly, forcing many clients to ask if there’s another option. This is true for both individual and small group plans, and its cause dates back to some regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in December of 2016.
    Read

    Join Our Newsletter

    Take your career to the next level and join the growing community of agents who have found it very rewarding to work with AHCP.