This post is part of a series of sponsored by Agent Sync.
For carriers and agencies selling Medicare advantage, supplement or part d -plans, Medicare Open Enrollment Season is always just around the corner.
If you are a life insurance company, a Medicare Agency or MGA/MGU and you are trying to come up with the amount of work you need to do before, during and after your Medicare open enrollment season, then you have no fear. We are here to guide you through some best practices to make sure the season runs smoothly for you, your manufacturers and your customers.
When is Medicare Open Enrollment?
Consumers have a window from October 15 to December 7 to sign up for original Medicare and new Medicare supplement plans – also known as Medsup or Medigap – as well as part D plans. And for Medicare Advantage Enrollees, January 1 to March 31, is the open enrollment season for benefit.
Why is Medicare Open Enrollment so great?
The Medicare Open Enrollment Season is the possibility of Medicare recipients to participate in Medicare Advantage plan, Supplement Plan or Part D plan, which is best suited for their needs. Or for the current Medicare advantage -registrations are the open enrollment period for advantage when they may switch between benefit plans.
If you have any questions about the difficulties of Medicare Subject periods, you can check out our introduction to Medicare piece that touches WHO, what, when and why of Medicare.
Historically, 6.2 million Medicare recipients benefit from Medicare open enrollment season. In addition, the efforts to raise awareness of the importance of open enrollment season and the opportunity to switch between plans are increased. The chance is that the number of recipients who benefit from this period of enrollment will only increase when the benefits (and its seasonal changes) increase in popularity.
Even Medicare Supplementary Plans, which have historically been a choice that is once in a lifetime, facing more cultivation than ever, as states have increasingly stated that consumers are able to switch between plans with similar or less benefits.
Increased revenue and potential churn means that Medicare Agency is better prepared to handle their business.
Best Practice for Medicare -Air Companies, Agencies and MGAS/MGUs to perform a profitable open registration
Millions of senior and disabled Americans are looking for support as they switch between Medicare plans. And it’s simply not a carrier, agencies or MGAS/MGUs can ignore.
When done right, open enrollment season is the opportunity for these companies to prove that they are a well-oiled machine, get a threat with producers and help Medicare recipients live their very best lives. But when done wrong, open enrollment season can be messy, stressful and expensive. Tighten up and let’s look at how to make your next open enrollment season more profitable than ever before:
No. 1: Assess your distribution needs exactly
Maybe you’re heavy on manufacturers in Nebraska. Maybe you need to focus your recruitment in Georgia. The reality is that demographics are changing. This means that no two Medicare open enrollment seasons will be the same and you have to prepare to meet the market where it is in a given year. This means assessing where your manufacturers have the appropriate appointments and licenses to do business, and match it to regions where you expect most options.
This may also mean committing some of your licensed workforce to retain consumers for benefit plans or supplement plans in states that allow supplement changes without insurance.
For agencies taking a seasonal approach to this by quickly scaling up and down in their producer forces to make sales targets, mapping these options will operate producer recruitment.
> Agent Syncs Distribution Channel Management Software Dashboards can give you a visibility in a brilliance in the ready for sales status for your downstream manufacturers. Get a full overview of your workforce, filtering by appointments, licenses and lines of authority.
No. 2: Plan how to ramp up on board before Medicare Open Enrollment
Whether you need to note a call center or hitting the sidewalk every day for Medicare, almost all Medicare organizations need to board new producers and distribution partners prior to or in open enrollment season. Still, it is impractical to call your internal staff to manage all your downstream distributors.
By applying a plan that includes a distribution channel management solution, you can manage onboarding on a scale. Do not create your staff for a manufacturer operation relationship that requires you to constantly hit the internal staff. Using the right software gives your team the opportunity to call your manufacturer power and right -sized distribution channels. Bulk actions can help you achieve your goals to acquire the right licenses and appointments for open registration, all without the drama.
> With Agent Sync, Bulk Actions help you manage your agents on scale, apply for licenses or agreements for thousands of manufacturers in multiple states at once. Built -in state rules prevent you from applying for unnecessary or duplicative licenses, saving you in fees and staff double work.
No. 3: Store and recruit talented producers with an intuitive experience
Medicare Open Registration is annual. It happens every single year. Since so many producers’ relationships with agencies and carriers are limited to just a single season, it can feel like you’re starting from scratch every year.
By building a positive experience for producers from their first Medicare Open registration season, carriers, agencies and MGAS/MGUs can save time and money on recruitment efforts by promoting the company’s loyalty and encouraging producers to come back years over years.
For new manufacturers, it means offering a quick and streamlined onboarding process to give them as narrow a ready for selling wait as possible. For many agencies and carriers, speed and accuracy are the best differentiates during this period. Especially if you are aboard people who are new to the industry, you cannot rely on their institutional knowledge to lead them through. But a practical white-glove onboarding service is impossible in scale. So the name of the game delivers your manufacturers a superior experience by putting them in the driver’s seat with intuitive self -service tools.
> Agent Sync’s Manager product gives your manufacturers a branded-to-you portal where they can upload their own documents, get messages from your team and see where they are in the process. Manage Automatic Message and Receipt Features Cut Down on Repeated Manual Post and Paper Chasing
No. 4: Make a plan for offboard producers after Medicare Open Enrollment Season
Many Medicare-focused manufacturers operate in something of a temporary role. Medicare transporters, agencies and MGAS/MGUs need the support of these manufacturers to get through open enrollment season, but may not want to control them through the largely unproductive remnant of the year. So they will be on board shortly before Medicare Open Enrollment and Offboarded shortly after.
Recruiting these new producers and the management of the onboarding and offboarding process will inevitably result in further workload for existing staff. By planning for this influx of new manufacturers and establishing both a recruitment strategy and a system for what onboarding and offboarding can look like, companies can set the framework for a successful open enrollment season.
> Agent Sync’s Bulk actions make terminations a low lift for your team. From notifying the necessary states to preparing e-mail-emission messages for your agents, you can right size your distribution strength after the Medicare Open Enrollment Season that risks your business and saves you money in unnecessary renewals for manufacturers who do not actively sell your products.
How the Right DCM Software can do or break your Medicare Open Enrollment
Medicare Open Enrollment Season can be hectic, and human errors complicate the additional cycle with on board and offboarding that many Medicare Agency undergoes.
Nevertheless, the maintenance of visibility in your downstream distribution channels and compliance with regulatory requirements in the “Need to Have” column.
Fortunately, carriers, agencies and MGAS/MGUs can avoid these slip-ups using Distribution Channel Management (DCM) software. DCM software helps save time and prevent human error in the manufacturer’s onboarding and offboarding.
Are you ready for the next Medicare and Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Season?
AgentSyncs Management Product is the leading DCM software that gives you the edge during the Medicare Open registration by giving your staff the opportunity:
- Flag holes in producer data during the onboarding process. This allows companies to correct license or contract errors before a manufacturer starts selling, shortening ready for the sales process and saving money and time.
- Leverage portals that give your manufacturers direct access to both accountability and visibility in the process, which ends the hours your staff spends chasing paperwork and answering questions.
- Reduce paperwork (digitally and otherwise) by streamlining onboarding and offboarding processes, making your process less time-consuming and easier for inexperienced employees and producers to connect.
- Use Automation to create a termination date that triggers offboarding process without a series of sticky note reminders, giving you the opportunity to manage a distribution channel on scale without growing internal staff numbers.
- Source your data via APIs that give you always-to-date visibility for all your downstream Medicare agents so you can make intelligent, data-driven decisions about your distribution growth.
- Stores items and license information for auditing and marketing exams. In this way, the staff do not have to retroactively sort through documentation to pull key data when it is time to submit to an exam.
- Complete actions for your distribution channels in Bulk, applying for multiple licenses or agreements in multiple states for multiple producers, all with a single submission.
Agent Sync will make your next open enrollment season less chaotic and more profitable. If you are ready to streamline your distribution channels for growth, get a demo of management today.
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