There are a lot of things you have to do to prepare your practice for the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period. A lot of it is work in the office behind the scenes. But some of it is client preparation. Our older clients by now have a better idea of the schedule, but newer ones need some training.
Why is preparing clients important for this period? Simply put, if you do not prepare your clients, I can guarantee someone else will. There are too many other agents and brokers selling Medicare products for your clients not to be solicited by them. And even for the ones you don’t expect to leave, the advertising, temptation, and word of mouth among friends and neighbors may be too great for some of them. It does not take a lot of effort to just remind your clients that you are here, you know what’s coming, and you have their back. Most of the time that is all you need to do to retain their business. Here is what we do to prepare our clients.
August:
- We create a letter to our clients reminding them the annual enrollment period is coming up. We give them a heads up that we will be calling them in September, give them the phone number we will be calling from, and remind them of the names of the people that will call them. In this letter, we also give them an email address they can use to send us any changes and for those that requested to do it this way, an email link to automate those changes. The letter also asks them to forward it to anyone new that they wish to help assist in the review process. The goal of this letter is to remind people that we will contact them and why. We will be updating the info we have on them before AEP begins and address any immediate concerns and changes, all before October.
September:
- We implement the directions from the letter. We’ve got our client lists printed. When we get clients on the phone, we have them recite their list of drugs to us and we counter that with what we have. If they mention something not in our records, we make note of it. If we have something they don’t mention, we ask about it. Was it an omission or was it dropped (eye drops and skin creams are usually the biggest culprits). Did the milligrams change? Is it ER or standard release? Did the drug go generic recently? If so, are you taking it as a generic now? This sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. And it helps to keep problems from coming up next month when the timer begins.
- The September calls are also when we get the next year’s scope of appointment from everyone. We may not need to use them, but if we get them now, we have them. Not every agency might be able to do it this way, as they sell non-Medicare products, but it works out fine for us. As the products discussed in the scope of appointments are the only things we are capable of selling, there’s never any question we will be pivoting away to something unexpected.
- We’ve learned these calls work wonders when it comes to getting referrals or additional business, or getting us ahead of the game if the person needs to be moved into a different plan. We don’t even ask for referrals anymore. The fact that we’re always talking with them every year is enough to get them to tell us about others not getting this kind of conscientious service.
October-November:
- It’s time to do what we promised: Everyone gets a call or an email, depending on their preference. We go over the changes: How their medical changes affect their plans and how the plan changes affect their medical needs. If it is necessary to make a change, we go over what it is, why to do it, and the new benefits of that plan. We then address concerns or questions. If time allows, we’ll go over how the existing plan changes for next year and usually they’re done. If they need to make a change, we go over the pros and cons, and offer a presentation on the new plan. Once the client is satisfied, we work out how to make the new enrollment happen.
- We have someone monitor any enrollment changes. Sometimes these changes can get held up due to an enrollment error, a Medicare status change, or sometimes, unfortunately, a call center call doing something entirely different with your client than planned. We do have to do follow-ups with our clients after the enrollment call is completed to handle the unexpected, and we warn them in advance that this could happen.
December:
- AEP changes don’t happen until January 1, so we do consistent checks of everyone, including the stays, to make sure no one winds up in a plan they were not expecting to be in. Those changes usually show up the second or third week of December, so we make sure when something doesn’t look right clients can be reached during December. It is the busiest month for a lot older Americans, between holiday family visits, weather, and shopping. So catching problems as early as possible and making sure your clients can be reached and will take your calls are more important than ever during this last month.
- New card calls: A lot of clients request copies of their cards before the start of the new year. Not every carrier has a portal set up for them before January, or the clients are not tech-savvy enough to get set up on them. A lot of incoming calls are requests for new card numbers. For drug plans, have the RX BIN and RX GRP number for each plan at the ready. And then the member ID should be easily accessible from the agent portal. For Medicare Advantage, you may have to direct the client to customer service, as those RX numbers sometimes vary by county.
- If someone really wanted a supplement change and did not tell you before AEP, these last couple weeks of the year are when we will do them. As much as we try to do these changes before October, some wait until AEP to talk with us about it. We put those calls aside until December 8 and deal with them then. We don’t want clients panicking. So we make sure they understand the December 7 deadline doesn’t apply here, but we want to help them on this after that date. Most understand and they are a priority for us as soon as the 7th passes.
Elie Harriett co-owns Classic Insurance & Financial Services Co., specializing in Medicare-related insurance, and is a trustee of NAIFA-Ohio. Harriett can be reached at elie@harriett.us.