California Health Care
by Wendy Barnett
Beginning the week of August 1st, Covered CA’s Office of Consumer Protection (OCP) will start a new Special Enrollment verification process. They will select a random sample of their members who enrolled during the Special Enrollment Period (SEP) to verify their Qualifying Life Event (QLE). Additionally, Covered CA has added notices and fraud warnings to their application signature pages. Furthermore, Certified Enrollment Counselors and Certified Covered CA Agents have been cautioned that they must also ensure their clients are able to provide proof of a QLE. These steps are being taken to ensure SEP guidelines are being followed properly with Covered CA enrollments and are in addition to any QLE verification processes that insurance carriers may take.
by John Hansen
Obamacare rates are going up in 2017. Most states will have rate increases in the double digits. According to leading General Agency / FMO, Health Family Insurance, they have seen nothing in the single digits across the country with regard to average rate increases by state.
Some carriers are raising rates much more than 20%. Blue cross in Texas will have an almost 55% rate increase across the state in 2017 for Obamacare plans. Humana in Michigan will have a price increase of over 50% next year.
For more information on the ACA plan options and rate levels, see Obamacare Plans and Prices.
The 3 R’s, Risk Adjustment, Reinsurance and Risk Corridors, were put in place to reduce risk for health insurance carriers. However, some changes are happening to Obamacare in 2017; 2 of the 3 R’s are going away. This alone is causing medical plans to file for rate increases.
Also, carriers are just now beginning to get a clearer picture of the risk associated with the pool of Health Care...
by John Hansen
Yes. Molina Insurance rates are available through Quotit along with the rates and benefits for all carriers that are offered through Covered California, the State Health Benefits Exchange.
Quotit is a web based entity that supports health insurance brokers in California and across the nation. Once approved by CMS, Quotit gets access to plans and rates in the marketplace and makes them available to agents who pay monthly fees in order to use their software.
Quotit offers individual and family online quoting for all 50 states. And, it offers pricing for group health insurance in California. Agents can use the software to calculate rates as well as to email quotes and provide links to online applications and enrollment forms.
Quotit is one of several Web Based Entities (WBE) that provide API’s or feeds and online quoting for agents. These WBE’s are required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to display all the health insurance companies available on the exchange, otherwise t...
by John Hansen
The 2017 Obamacare Open Enrollment Period begins November 1, 2016 and goes until January 31, 2017. For health insurance consumers, they will have three months to apply for Obama Care.
During the 2017 Covered California open enrollment period, consumers can apply for health insurance or change plans without having a qualifying life event.
If you’ve been seeing the doctor a bit more than you expected, you might want to up your coverage. If you’re paying more in premiums than you’d like, you might want to drop down to a cheaper health insurance plan.
Or, you might want to move only some family members to a different plan. For family health plans in California, in 2017 households will be able to enroll different family members on different plans through their online Covered California account.
Covered California rates are going up on average 13% in 2017, so many consumers are expected to make changes in order to lower their monthly premiums. Most of this movement will oc...
by John Hansen
Molina Healthcare offers the best in class broker support team for their agents. They have a broker support phone line. Where other carriers can bounce you around and make you wait for a long time, Molina has been very good at answering phone calls in a timely manner.
The Molina Healthcare Resolution Team is able to resolve an issue on the first call most of time. If you can’t resolve your issue using the broker team, you can also call the Health Family Insurance FMO/General Agency for additional support. HFI has access to senior leadership all the way at the top because they are the #1 general agency for Molina Insurance sales.
Molina has an excellent broker portal. Health insurance brokers in California and other states can download production reports and view their book of business 24/7 through the portal.
Agents can view “paid to date” in order to better manage their book of business. They can see which clients have paid and which have not, so they can follow up w...
by John Hansen
Molina Healthcare is a medical insurance company that knows who they are and where they are going. They compete in the government assistance health insurance market. They offer on-exchange medical plans through state and federal exchanges. That’s their niche, and they have no interest in the off-exchange market. The opportunity for Molina in the Obamacare marketplace is just too great. The three biggest markets for Molina are Florida, Texas and California.
In the golden state, Molina Insurance competes strongly with Health Net California and other carriers on pricing, benefit design and provider network. For the most part Molina has been beating Health Net across the board (with the exception of North Los Angeles County). This explains why Health Net has lost so much market share to Molina.
Molina was exclusively a Medicaid/Medi-Cal provider before the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Already being established in the government assisted health insurance ni...
by John Hansen
Molina Healthcare is the fastest growing Fortune 500 company that offers Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance coverage. Their mission is to serve underserved individuals by focusing on those needing assistance, government funded programs, and tax credits like the ACA.
They began strong in Florida and have expanded to other markets. They now offer health insurance in California and are expanding to serve Orange County in the 2017 Open Enrollment Period.
3.5 million individuals nationwide are covered by Molina Insurance through government-based healthcare programs including Medicaid, Medi-Cal, Covered California and the Federal Health Insurance Marketplace. Molina Healthcare is now the national market leader in the United States for Obamacare Enrollment.
In 2016, Molina Healthcare California expanded their market in Los Angeles, the Inland empire, and in San Diego County. And, Molina had the lowest priced Silver Plan in Southern California.
This fast growing carrier offe...
by John Hansen
The Health Family Insurance (HFI) Life Insurance Product division, Secure Life Financial, was founded at the end of 2010. Now, HFI is one of the top producers of life insurance sales for Trans America. The company is a General Agency and a Field Marketing Organization (FMO) which supports over 1000 brokers nation-wide, offers individual and supplemental health insurance plans.
In 2011, the first year in the market, Secure Life Financial sold 1.7 million dollars in annualized premium. Health Family Insurance created a cross selling model that has been very helpful for their health insurance brokers in California and across the nation. By tapping into their existing clients, they were able to increase their book of business, build rapport with their consumers and increase retention rates.
Heath Family Insurance offers a specialized product line that is geared to the needs of medical insurance agents. They also provide continuous training programs, aggressive marketing campaig...
by John Hansen
Health Family Insurance (HFI) is a Managing General Agency or Field Marketing Organization (FMO). The company has been supporting brokers for over 20 years with sales of individual and family health plans in California, Texas, Florida and across the nation. HFI started in Florida and later expanded to Texas, California and other areas. They recruit and train independent Health Insurance Brokers in California and other states through weekly training webinars in English and Spanish.
HFI senior management brings 50+ years of managed care strategic planning expertise. They are true experts when it comes to Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment. In the first three Open Enrollment Periods, they have taken in over 200,000 new applicants.
Health Family Insurance is the #1 producing agency for Molina Insurance and other national and regional carriers including Ambetter, Aetna, and Coventry. They offer access to Health Care Reform plans, pricing and enrollment. They also offer suppl...
by Wendy Barnett
A recently announced feature on the Covered CA application significantly affects the plan selection process by adding much needed versatility. Covered California now gives families who are eligible for Advanced Premium Tax Credits (APTC) the option to choose different plans for different members in their household. Therefore, if one member needs richer benefits or a certain doctor network that other members don’t need, plans can be chosen based on those specific requirements.
Before this feature was available, all the members of a household had to choose the same plan level and the same insurance carrier. The Covered California system couldn’t handle itemizing out the tax credits to different insurance companies or plans.
Covered California made updates to their CalHEERS online application(version 16.7) on August 1, 2016 and said “The tax credits will be automatically disbursed across the selected individual plans or custom grouped plans.” The optional custom gro...