Q. Should I offer my clients Prescription Drug Plans?
A. There are many brokers who have made the decision not to offer a PDP plan to their Medicare Supplement clients. They simply refer them to the www.medicare.gov website to follow the Plan Finder and enroll on their own.
While the annual recertification process is time consuming and the commission is fairly small compared to the amount of time spent with PDP clients the ultimate factor in your decision to offer PDP plans to your clients is to protect them from having a conversation with a different broker about their needs.
When you don’t help them decide on a PDP plan you risk losing both the commission and renewal on PDP as well as Medicare Supplement to an agent who is willing to give them more time and attention. Once a different broker is given the opportunity to sit down with your client, every piece of business that you currently have with them is at risk simply because you didn’t take the extra 30 minutes initially. You cannot calculate the lost income in PDP commissions only.
So, unless you are excited about the prospect of losing clients the question should be “Why wouldn’t you offer Prescription Drug Plans.”
For more information regarding prescription drugs plans and other Medicare health plan options, please click here. We offer over 150 companies to ensure you are providing the most competitive products and affordable solutions to your beneficiaries.
-Answered by Lester Conn, Regional Vice President
Lester Conn is Regional Vice President of the California, Wisconsin, Missouri, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio Markets. Lester is also a licensed life and health insurance agent and owned his own agency for 12 years prior to joining the Agent Pipeline family. He has been working in the Medicare market at Agent Pipeline for over 6 years. To contact Lester for opportunities in your market, you can contact him at 800-962-4693 ext. 6463.
