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    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.
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    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.
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    Is the ACA Really Dead?

    January 26, 2018
    One year into Donald Trump’s presidency, most would agree that his biggest legislative victory is the recently-passed tax reform legislation. Tax reform was a top priority for the new president, and the bill’s passage helps President Trump fulfill an important campaign promise. Two promises actually:
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    Millions May Qualify for Special Enrollment

    January 19, 2018
    As you know, the Affordable Care Act gives people the opportunity to purchase or change health coverage during the ACA’s individual open enrollment period. And, as you also know, the 2018 open enrollment period was only half as long as last year’s. For 2017 plans, people had three months to sign up; for 2018, they only had six weeks. The open enrollment period officially closed December 15, 2017.
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    Status of the Individual and Employer Mandates

    January 8, 2018
    When the Affordable Care Act was signed into law nearly eight years ago, there was a lot of criticism about a number of different provisions. Some said that the guaranteed issue rule, while noble in its goal to allow anyone who wants health insurance to buy health insurance, would lead to adverse selection and higher insurance rates. Others said that the premium tax credits and expanded Medicaid would blow up the budget. And still others said that the modified adjusted community rating provision would hurt a carrier’s ability to rate based on risk. Even with all that criticism, it could be argued that the two most controversial and unpopular provisions of the massive health care law were the individual and employer mandates. And now, eight years later, those two provisions are both in the news again.
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    CVS to Purchase Aetna

    January 5, 2018
    By now you’ve certainly heard the news: CVS has announced plans to purchase Aetna for a record $69 billion, the largest-ever merger in the health insurance industry. CVS currently has roughly 10,000 pharmacies, and, if approved, the deal would allow the pharmacy giant to offer health care services and prescriptions to Aetna’s 22 million members.
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    2017 Year-End Wrap Up

    December 27, 2017
    As we near the end of another year, it’s time to close the books on 2017 and look ahead to 2018. As we do, it’s helpful to review the big news stories from the last 12 months and determine whether they’ll carry over to the next calendar year or just be interesting moments in history that we can look back on but stop worrying about.
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    What type of coverage do you have?

    December 21, 2017
    We know—that’s a weird question, but it is a relevant one. Insurance agents don’t just sell individual and group health insurance policies; most are also covered by one. And that means that many of you are facing the same challenges that your clients have: finding an affordable plan that protects you from financial loss and covers your doctor visits and prescriptions. The trouble is, plans that check off all of these requirements are pretty rare, so you probably have to make some of the same sacrifices as your clients.
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    New People Are Signing Up For Marketplace Coverage

    December 4, 2017
    In the insurance industry, we all know that the main reason to purchase health insurance is because we’re unable to predict the future. Unexpected and potentially catastrophic injuries and illnesses do happen, and when they do, people with health insurance tend to fare much better financially than those without.
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    The Medical-Dental Connection

    December 1, 2017
    As a general rule, people don’t like health insurance. It’s confusing, the premiums are difficult for many people to afford, and those without serious or chronic conditions may never hit the deductible, reducing their perceived value of the plan.
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