Medicare Sales Job Listings – WATCH OUT! (VIDEO)
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Hi! Christopher Westfall here with MedicareAgentTraining.com and, it happened again three times last week.
I met on video chat with three new members of Medicare age and training they can schedule a time to meet together we use zoom when they join Medicare agent training comm and we go over their goals what their plans are and if they need any advice or any guidance or any suggestions on where to market how to market how to set up their business we go over that then we put them on a course for success in three of those conversations they all happen the same way and this has happened dozens and dozens of times this year already the agents were recruited into the industry through indeed through online ads run by captive shops that focus on one solitary aspect of Medicare these agents then became disillusioned with that one solitary aspect of Medicare and then ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they found out that there's more to Medicare than just the path they were recruited in and I want to talk about that for a minute because as it's happening more and more often maybe if I put this on youtube someone can figure it out sooner then many of these folks had had because they'd gone down the wrong path were led to believe that there's only one solution for all people with Medicare and that's simply not true they discovered on their own through Google searches that there is something better they discovered my videos they discover the training and now they're offering a balanced approach to clients which does them a great service rather than a disservice with each and every appointment here's the scenario and here's how it goes the indeed ad will offer employment new job offering something like 50,000 a year they'll talk about it's all BS it's all Commission based 100% and then they'll lead them to different things forward lead generation like sitting in a Walmart store sitting in a Walgreens store going to food pantries literally yeah going to low-income neighborhoods or running final expense leads in order to be a loss leader to get Medicare Advantage business let me share something with you see on Medicare Advantage contracts with my level at $600 right at $600 for a new to Medicare commissioned to get somebody onto a Medicare Advantage plan for the first time that's huge now agents typically will be a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars less than that when they're starting in the industry what does that mean for me it means that if I recruited solely for Medicare Advantage and I pushed people out there to sign up seniors for Medicare Advantage plans only my overrides would be huge I would make a stealing fortune on that getting people into new to Medicare and that's why the agencies the recruiters the people on indeed looking for people are so focused on Medicare Advantage I've covered before at Medicare age of training comm that the override on Medicare supplement conversely is about two percent with some companies three or four percent of the premium average premium fifteen hundred dollars a year you do to men either gonna make like twenty dollars a year or forty dollars a year as an override from my level to a street level starting agent now the Commission's that I give my agents are the same that all the carrier's give directly so if an agent contracted with me for a Medicare supplement carrier or Medicare Advantage carrier it would be the same Commission as going through me as it would be if they went directly to the carrier but they would not then have any direct one-on-one support or help when things go wrong so it's not that I'm undercutting commissions by any means on Medicare supplement that's just the way the system set out so if you ask yourself why is it that all these companies are recruiting only for Medicare Advantage only teaching and this is the part that I have issue with only teaching the Medicare Advantage route as the only solution for seniors either when they're turning 65 or targeting even worse just targeting low-income seniors for the sole purpose of getting them off of Original Medicare and onto Medicare Advantage for the first time sometimes they'll disguise this is doing a favor for the people doing something better than them taking away their original Medicare but in all cases it's a focus 100% on putting them on Medicare Advantage is the only option they won't even show because they weren't trained any other option besides Medicare Advantage they won't show Medicare supplement they don't know anything from shinola on Plan F plan G plan and plan l any of the Medicare supplements whatsoever why because they were never trained that way why you must deduce from that the the intent behind it and I don't want to assign to anyone any negative intent but I will tell you this if my override Foreman agent is $200 per case in the first year on a Medicare Advantage plan even worse if I have to spend absolutely nothing and neither do they on leads because they're just going after poor folks then that would lead me to believe that with a Medicare supplement I might make $20 per year or 150 or $200 for that first year what is the financial incentive if it's all about money and then if you look at the misleading ads on indeed where they're talking about you can make all this money all this money it's an employment position and then you find out it's not employment it's only Commission only you have to bring your own people will give you some guidance but that's about it go take your a hip exam and see the thing is with all these people that have come to me that they're doing their video calls with me they're all saying I've got a hip I've got the certifications I don't understand anything except push everybody into Medicare Advantage and then I discovered when they ask me about Medicare supplements I don't know anything about them I was never trained about Medicare supplements I don't know what Mutual of Omaha offers or Aetna supplemental or Cigna on the Medicare supplement side I don't know anything about those things and that makes me assign some intent coming back to the dollars if the incentive is 5 to 10 times more for me to only teach agents about Medicare Advantage and confined the walls of their world their world view is limited in scope to Medicare Advantage and that's what they go into the house with then when they learn that there's a whole different world to that it's kind of hard to break that bad habit that bad training see most of these agents believe that you can't talk to a single person out there about their Medicare at all unless they first reached out to you or you reached out to them in a surreptitious way so that when you get around about conversation to Medicare you then seize upon that opportunity and get them a scope of appointment then it makes everything whitewashed and everything fine no matter what your marketing approach was and it's just not ethical the sole purpose again being the conversation to drive them back to Medicare Advantage only for two percent to them Medicare Advantage options mostly with one limited carrier so if you look at the world of Medicare and you can either go Medicare Advantage or Medicare supplement keeping Original Medicare with the freedom and flexibility to go to any provider in the United States that accept Medicare Original Medicare which is most all any and all hospitals with no referrals required that's a biggie no pre authorizations required that's a huge thing just look at my video about the Office of Inspector General's report from HHS that's Health and Human Services looking at Medicare Advantage plans specifically about how many routine things with authorization required are denied automatically denied until the person appeals and appeals and appeals for those who did not see the other video just a quick highlight 56% of medicare advantage companies inappropriately denied claims according to the HHS study the motive was to potentially profit from the capitated payment systems and Medicare Advantage that's not my language that's theirs 56% of the companies have inappropriately denied claims in 2016 to be exact 45 percent of Medicare Advantage companies provided insufficient information as to why they denied those claims this is the OIG study this is the most shocking between 2014 and 2016 seventy percent of appealed claims were overturned or partially overturned 70% of the time that they denied something or declined to pay for something it was overturned if someone simply knew how to do the appeals process and if you think about it those people who have chronic pain from whatever the realm it is maybe it's lower back pain maybe it's kidney pain whatever whatever it is and then they want to and this is not my saying it's the Office of Inspector General from HHS I'll link to it in the description below talking about the systemic way in which these Medicare Advantage plans will manage care to the cheapest cheapest cheapest cheapest cheapest routes possible until the appeals are all exhausted and they have to finally give in and then relent and pay for what was necessary what could have been solved to eliminate pain and solve the problem from the beginning have they been on Original Medicare see Original Medicare with a Medicare supplement that would not have been an issue they go straight for the right solution go straight to the right specialist without regard to network do you accept Medicare great I'm coming in it's a huge world of difference when you're looking beyond the sale when you're looking at the lifetime value of the client is the client going to be genuinely mad at you and they can't get a referral and their co-pays change with their doctor drops out of the network when they can't get an authorization they can't get into the hospital the hospital's change all the time all these things are changing every single year and they're blowing up your phones about it see in my office we do maybe five maybe ten percent somewhere in there Medicare Advantage you know riddle you this as an agent ninety percent of our problems come from that five to ten percent and that's the Medicare Advantage folks and it's just managing the ongoing problems that happen with the networks and the authorizations and the referrals and they're changing and every year it's always the same things are always gonna change because it's a one-year contract so if someone asks to me which they do ask me all the time which focus should I have should it be 100% Medicare Advantage or 100% Medicare supplement you can't honestly say go one path or just the other you have to have a mix you have to have what's best for the client not everyone's well suited for Medicare supplement because they can't afford it but is it the best absolutely is it the best not to have networks and restrictions and prior authorizations and have to pick a primary care physician and have to get in on there on a capitated basis when they're gonna schedule you in and all the things inherent in a managed care system that's free that's what they sell it as no that's not the best solution that's a last worst case scenario if you can't get the best coverage which is Original Medicare which by itself is great but it only pays 80% of the bills on the outpatients that's part B that's where the supplement comes in and that's the problem that I have is that these agencies which are growing and growing and growing and pushing and pushing and pushing her only focused on Medicare Advantage and I suspect the reason is because the dollars behind it it's a huge financial incentive to only talk about one aspect of Medicare and I think it's almost criminal it's certainly an ethical deficit to not explain to the agent so therefore not explained to the senior that they have other choices their Medicare supplement and what the agency make less money on it yes you better believe they would I started Medicare agent training.com and February of 2013 for over seven years now we've been helping agents to navigate the world of Medicare keeping him up to date on everything that's changing with regard to the law and there's been a lot of changes like in 2015 when there was the first hearing in Congress on Macra we were covering it we're talking about plan f they're talking about eliminating it when Joe Lieberman sat before the Senate coming back as a former senator talking about what his discoveries were about the utilization of plan F and why it needs to go why you need to take away that non-deductible option it was covered first on Medicare age and training comm and then for the next five years we covered the transition from plan F to plan G and then from plan G to plan in is the best opportunity but then you have thousands of agents who are aggressively marketed to sometimes when they first get their license they're reached out to oh there's a brand new agent it's new blood they don't know anything let's pull them into our captive shop teach them only one way is that is the only way this way Medicare Advantage and then hopefully they'll find a video like this where they find out oh I've got a red pill and a blue pill which one am I going to take do I keep my limitations confined on Medicare Advantage and all the inherent frustrations even that is an agent much less as a client that are going to come with just a limited scope of an HMO only option or are you going to expand your options and the opportunities for not just you but for your clients to bills build residual income and yes your own business with certitude with certainty with with convenience of hey the company's going to pay the bills if Medicare says it's a legit claim and voodoo witchcraft or witch doctor or some weird old thing if it's a legit medically necessary thing the Medicare is gonna pay for it and then that is the only soul trigger for whether or not the supplement company's going to pay for it easy peasy fresh and squeezy that's a weird weird saying but I'll tell you this it's a lot better of a world to debt to have twelve thousand Medicare supplement clients as it is to have Medicare Advantage plans and how do you pick that how do you determine which clients are going to be more apt to go Medicare supplement or Medicare Advantage and one of those little tips I'll give you is it comes down to the demographics of the folks that you're marketing to either that or the content that you're putting out so that Google will find those people and bring them to you are you focused on the middle income people in America that will predominantly go to Medicare supplement if they're explain the differences honestly and wholly with full disclosure or are you focused only on the low income so that that will gravitate them always to Medicare Advantage why because they can't afford the premium and certainly there is a need for people to market to the low income people but I would argue if you market to certain segments like if you market to the middle of class America and you give them both options then they get to choose they get to make that choice the only problem with it is and this is what agents are discovering and what what clients discover inevitably too late is that when they make the choice for Medicare Advantage when they're new to Medicare or they make the choice for Medicare Advantage when they were otherwise healthy and could have gone to a supplement they then forever give up the right to do a Medicare supplement if their health does not allow them to do that now there are some exceptions states like New York for instance you can go Medicare supplement any time you want to open enrollment all year long but for the vast majority of the country that's simply not the case you give up after you're done with your initial election period that's the first six months of being on Medicare you can get a Medicare supplement plan yes I said six months it's not three months on both sides like it is with Medicare Advantage for Medicare supplements you've got six months from the time you activate your Part B that you can get a Medicare supplement with no questions asked 100% open enrollment for the Medicare Advantage people who get Medicare Advantage when they're turning 65 when that window closes then forevermore in majority of the country the vast majority of the country they would then have to qualify with health questions to get on a Medicare supplement it's not impossible but there are questions about have you had heart attack stroke cancer in the last few years or you have a chronic condition that you're managing how to control diabetes and so on and so on so if you have to qualify for one plan that's the Medicare supplement later and you don't have to qualify for Medicare Advantage you can sign up for that any year that you want to which would you think might be the better choice of the two given the fact that money is not an option money's not an issue you if you are middle-class America and you can't afford a Medicare supplement you've got the teetering choice of one that I would have to qualify for that pays for everything or one that I don't have to qualify for the subsidized by the government and then they control what you're gonna get for your healthcare I would argue the one that you have to qualify for that pays for everything that's medically necessary pays the claims automatically with crossover which is just automatically paid by the Medicare and met by the Medicare supplement or the plan that you have to get prior authorizations for have to get a referral for have to get permission before you have surgeries for have a limited scope of a network for yeah but you can sign up for it any time of the year unfortunately this is the reality of what we deal with when somebody is convinced that they've been healthy for 64 years now that they're 65 I don't need to pay for insurance just give me that free thing that I talk that I Saul talked about on TV I deserve this I desert get what you deserve get this free plan a Medicare benefits helpline is now open to help anyone a Medicare make sure you are getting all the benefits you deserve then something happens then the warranty breaks on that hip you know then the warranty goes out on that ticker things happen when you're starting to get up to 70 years old then they suddenly realize oh my god this has been the biggest pain in the butt of my whole I want to get that Medicare supplement plan that I saw a video about or that I heard about the supplement where I can go into any doctor I'm not limited by my specialists I'm not limited by my smallest cheapest Hospital in the area only then to find out that it's too late what do you mean it's too late you told me when I was turning 65 I could do either one I got all this mail now nobody wants me because I've developed this condition that's going to require treatment it happens folks it happens all the time but it all starts with an agent that has a well rounded fully educated mindset on what the options are it would start with reading the Medicare & you guidebook although the Medicare right center would argue that it's starting in 2019 that book has can been completely skewed to promote Medicare Advantage over Medicare supplement not telling the full Medicare supplement story and telling only half of the Medicare Advantage story why would that be why would the government be trying to get people off of them it Original Medicare rolls and put them onto private insurance where they can just write one check for that person off to the private insurance to take care of and not have to worry about any further claims from those people because it saves the government money it saves the government money when the person goes on to Medicare Advantage plan and then the Medicare Advantage plan can take a finite number of dollars and then manage your care they manage your care by what things they authorized and what networks they contract with so if you want managed care to the extent that it's gonna save the company the most amount of money which the converse side of that is it's going to make them the most money by the denial of care then that's what you're going to get but if you had the choice certainly you'd want to at least present both options to the clients wouldn't you that's the question I asked today so for the agents who've only been pitched one side of Medicare that is Medicare Advantage there is a whole other side that you have not been made aware of is Medicare Advantage growing yes there's a hell of a lot of money billions every year spent and you cannot have missed it once you've gotten your little insurance license all over the TV all over radio satellite TV satellite radio everywhere print billboards everywhere Medicare Advantage zero premium 0 this 0 0 0 0 0 without the small print and all I'm challenging you to do today is to look at the other side look at Medicare supplement and why so many people prefer the Medicare supplement again you can leave a Medicare supplement and go to a Medicare Advantage plan any year you want to during the annual enrollment period you can go get on a Medicare Advantage plan if you can't afford it but for the majority of people who know that difference and they are not shackled to not being able to pay $100 a month or what their Medicare supplement premium would be if that's an option for them if laid out fairly and positives and negatives on both which is what agents should be doing in every case then they'll make the right decision for them and then you can sleep well at night and that is what I challenge you to do look beyond the indeed offering look beyond the job postings and if you're with one of those agencies that's only showing you one option you need to ask yourself why you need to have a check in your gut and say why aren't they telling me about supplements is it because of the override or is it because it's the best thing for the people you do enough research and you'll come to your own conclusion I'm Chris Westfall for Medicare agent training com thanks for watching have a great day y'all oh subscribe to this channel if you want updates on Medicare some of them are pretty darn helpful take care [Music] [Music]