It’s open enrollment time, and that means we’re seeing more insurance commercials than normal, especially those targeting Medicare beneficiaries. They’re nearly as annoying as the political ads we’ve been inundated with for months.

CMS has released the Medicare premium and cost sharing numbers for 2023, and it’s much better news than we received last year. For 2022, the standard Medicare Part B premium went up by more than $20 per month. For 2023, it’s actually going down a little. Finally, some good news!

In a rare unanimous vote, the House of Representatives has passed the “Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act.” As reported by Medical Economics, the proposed law will “make it easier for senior patients to get care and improve health outcomes by modernizing the ‘antiquated’ prior authorization process” for the 28 million seniors currently enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan.

You’ve heard this advice from AHCP before: communicate with your clients regularly to provide additional value, stay top-of-mind, and stand out in the crowd of agents vying for your clients’ attention. This will help increase retention and will likely lead to additional referral business. But that’s easier said than done, mainly because many agents don’t know what they should be communicating. Most people don’t want to talk or read about health insurance all year long, so what can we tell our Medicare clients that they’ll actually want to hear?