UCT’s Dental-Vision-Hearing Plan Updated Rates Effective 3/1/2020

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UCT will be adjusting their rates effective 3/1/2020 for their DVH plan. Click here to review new rates.

Please note anything effective before 3/1/200 will receive old rates or present ones.

If you have any questions please reach out to our Cornerstone Senior Marketing rep.

Attend Humana’s DSNP Trainings – Schedule Below

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DSNP Trainings

Please join Huaman for a deep dive into the dual eligible Medicare/Medicaid Market to learn more about product offerings that can help improve your clients quality of life and grow your Medicare business year round.  For 2020 Humana has Dual-Eligible plans statewide in Ohio with many exciting benefits including a $25 monthly food card in many areas! Each meeting will run roughly an hour.

 

  • Wednesday, 2/19 – Toledo – 10am – Hilton Garden Inn, 6165 Levis Commons Blvd. Perrysburg, OH –Register
  • Tuesday, 2/25 – Cleveland – 10am – Holiday Inn, 6001 Rockside Rd. Independence, OH –Register
  • Wednesday, 2/26 – Columbus – 10am – Humana Office, 485 Metro Place S. 5th Floor, Dublin, OH –Register
  • Thursday, 2/27 – Canton – 10am – Hyatt Place Canton, 5421 Whipple Ave. NW, Canton, OH –Register
  • Tuesday, 3/3 – Cincinnati – 10am- New Humana Office, 3252 Geier Dr. Cincinnati, OH –Register
  • Wednesday, 3/4 – Dayton – 10am – Staybridge Suites, 10110 Landing Way, Miamisburg, OH –Register
  • Thursday, 3/5 – Youngstown – 10am – Fairfield by Marriott, 801 N Canfield Rd. Austintown, OH –Register

 

For more information or questions please reach out to your Cornerstone Senior Marketing rep.

 

SureBridge: Updates on Producer/Agency Emails & DocuSign

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SureBridge has some changes that were recently made to their Producer and Agency Welcome emails and DocuSign Account Activation Reminder emails.

Welcome Emails

  • Users will now receive 2 emails:
    • The first email will be the same Welcome email they receive today, with the exception of “Your password will be delivered in a separate email” replaced the Password line.
    • The second email will contain their temporary password.
  • Welcome email will CC the immediate reporting authority and BC the top level agency and Producer Onboarding.
  • Password email will only be sent to the activated user.
  • Welcome email will be sent from NoReply@SurebridgeInsurance.com.

DocuSign Account Activation Reminder Emails

  • Email will no longer CC the immediate reporting authority and BC the top level agency. It will only be sent to the activated user.
  • Reminder email will be sent weekly to any account with the status ‘Activation Sent’.
  • Email will be sent from SureBridge@surebridgeinsurance.com.

 

Aetna Med Supp February Updaes

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February 2020 Updates:

A few callouts for Aetna Medicare Supplement online quoting and enrollment tool. Here is how it works:

New underwriting process and application tracker

Aetna’s underwriting process will give you faster decisions for underwritten Aetna Medicare Supplement applications. Aetna has not altered their underwriting philosophy in any way. Most applications will have a decision within a few minutes. This exciting change also comes with an updated online application tracker, to give you clearer visibility to those decisions.

Changes: Point-of-sale telephone interview and voice signature option

To help make the underwriting process even easier for you, Aetna will no longer require or offer a point-of-sale telephone interview as of October 1, 2019. We’ll also be discontinuing the voice signature option.

  • If any point-of-sale interviews are still pending after October 1, the phone line will still be available to use until those interviews are complete.
  • Instead of a voice signature, you’ll continue to have 3 easy signature options for your electronic applications: security question signature, in person signature, email signature.

Our new underwriting process

Once Aetna receives your Medicare Supplement electronic application, they will provide one of the following underwriting decisions within a few minutes:

  • Approved
  • Needs further review
  • Declined

Aetna will also provide decisions on your paper applications once they have verified all required information has been included with the submission. This review may delay how soon the decision is displayed on the website.

    • Approved applications will be processed as normal.
    • If an application needs further review, the application will be reviewed by our underwriting staff.  And if necessary, our associates will call your client with targeted questions for clarification. This new telephone interview process will be easier for your client, as we will not need to review all health questions.
    • If an application is declined, we’ll send the applicant (and you) a letter with details about how to get a copy of the information used to help with the underwriting decision. The application tracker on the agent website will show if an application is declined. A copy of the letter will be accessible within 24 hours.

Aetna Med Supp MACRA 2020 has been a huge success thanks to you! They have launched their MACRA 2.0 strategy in 16 states.

August launches for MACRA 2020 – SC, IL, LA, AZ and TN

July launches – AL, GA, IA, MI and MS

September launch – FL and DE

October launches – OH, NC, KS and PA

What does all this mean? Aetna’s plan F rates will be on average within $15-$20 a month of our plan G rates and our plan F rates have been lowered.

Why is Aetna putting out rates that are so competitive on plan F? There are tens of millions reasons why.  After 1/1/20 anyone on a Medicare Supplement currently or Medicare eligible by 12/31/19 will still be able to purchase plan C, F and HIF after 1/1/20.

These clients that would like to receive a very competitive plan F rate with us will need to go through underwriting so this with be a very healthy group of insureds which can mean lower rate increases.

 

REMINDERS:

  • AETNA MED SUPP has a new agent services phone number: 866-272-6630
  • Clients can now purchase just the Cancer or just the Heart Attack and stroke benefit separately.
    • Also added a recurrence benefit and changed the look back period from 10 years to 5 years.
  • Aetna now has the ability to refund premiums directly into your clients accounts via EFT. No longer will it take 10-4 days to receive a refund.

 

If you have any questions please contact your Cornerstone Senior Marketing rep.

 

 

 

Anthem Ohio Feb. Updates & Reminders

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Agent of Record (AOR) Important Reminder:

  • Agent of Record (AOR) changes will not be accepted via a form letter or typed letter. Members requesting an AOR change must send a signed, hand-written letter to Anthem Inc., either by mail, fax or email attachment.  This process applies to Medicare Supplement, Anthem Extras and Medicare Advantage policies, including Part D.The letter must include:The letter must include:
  1. The letter must include:
    1. The member’s name and policy number,
    2. The name and encrypted tax ID or agent ID of the new Agent of Record, and
    3. Must include a signature date indicated in the letter.
  2. Anthem reserves the right to contact the member in order to validate all Agent of Record changes. The AOR request may be denied due to lack of confirmation.
  3. For like-to-like plan changes, such as a change from a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan to a different MA Plan, Anthem will maintain the original Agent of Record associated with the new policy, even when a new agent submits the new application.
  4. An exception to item #3 will be made if a member specifically requests a new AOR by submitting a signed Agent of Record letter to Anthem requesting the AOR be changed. Once Anthem confirms the request from the member, the AOR change request will be honored. Remember, form letters will not be accepted.
  5. For unlike plan changes, such as a member choosing to move from a Prescription Drug Plan to an MA plan or an MA plan to a Medicare Supplement plan, the Agent of Record as indicated on the new application will be assigned as the Agent of Record for the member.

View Full AOR Article Here

 

Provider Network Updates:

  • Agreements have been reached with no lapse in network status for the following providers:
    • Emergency Medicine Phys of Cincinnati – ER group at Mercy facilities in Cincinnati
    • Emergency Medicine Phys of Cuyahoga County – ER group at Summa Health facilities
    • Memorial Health System Marietta

 

Blue View Vision Network Change Effective February 1:

  • National optical retail stores Sears Optical, JCPenney Optical and Stanton Optical will no longer be in our Blue View VisionSM eye care plan network beginning February 1, 2020. Clients with Blue View Vision still have access to more than 37,000 eye doctors at more than 25,000 locations nationwide. That includes local independent eye doctors, regional optical stores and national brand stores – Glasses.com, ContactsDirect, 1-800 CONTACTS, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Target Optical, Eyemart Express and America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses. We’ll continue to add new providers to our vision plans throughout the year.

Medicare Supplement 6 Month Rate Guarantee:

  • In several states, Medicare Supplement premiums will not change as a result of their birthday or state approved premium changes for a minimum of six months. View flyer here.
    • The premium guarantee is available to all new enrollments with policy effective dates of 01/01/2020.

View the updated Medicare Supplement Quick Reference Guide

 

2020 Medicare 101 presentations are NOW available:

  • Educational events and one-on-one presentations are a great way to interact and build relationships with prospective members. This presentation showcases your role as a Medicare Expert and provides an easy-to-understand explanation of Medicare. The presentation is concise, compliance-approved, customizable and ideal for those events where your audience is new to Medicare.
  • The updated 2020 Medicare 101 Presentations are available in the Sales Toolkit. Just look in the MA/MAPD or Med Supp sections in the Presentation folder.
  • The presentation can be personalized (slide 35) with your contact information.
  • NOTE: Slide 1 of the presentation includes notes that are required by compliance to be mentioned during the presentation. Be sure to delete the slide before your presentation.

 

Anthem YouTube:

  • Anthem has two new short recordings for our “Anthem” YouTube site:
    • The link: (https://youtu.be/ypPgkjAgXo0)  will link to a 10 minute recorded review of basics of Understanding Low Income Subsidy. It helps to explain the difference between Low Income Subsidy (LIS) and Low Income Cost Sharing (LICS).
    • The link: (https://youtu.be/u_BOlokFo7w) reviews some of the advantages found in many of our plans as a result of our commitment to the Social Determinates of Health benefits program. It lasts approximately 14 minutes

Medical Mutual of Ohio February Updates

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Medical Mutual of Ohio has provided some February updates and info for our brokers. Please see below:

  • SilverSneakers recently updated their College Save program; the new program is called SAGE Scholars Tuition Rewards. Members will be required to create new accounts for this program, however, all previously earned points will carry over. For more details about the program update, click here.
  • Effective Feb. 1, 2020, the EyeMed network will no longer include Sears Optical, JCPenney and Stanton Optical. All Medicare Advantage members and Medicare Supplement members enrolled in the MedMutual Supplement Plus product are impacted. To review a list of alternative EyeMed provider locations, click here.
  • We mailed out all Medicare Advantage Member Kits to new and existing members on Jan. 20, 2020. All Member Kit brochures include personalized benefit information based on the member’s plan type. To view the kit, click here.
  • Medicare Advantage members and Medicare Supplement members with Supplement Plus coverage received an email notification about the new SuperDental network. This email was sent in error. The dental network for Medicare members is not changing in 2020 and remains the DenteMax network. We sent an apology email to the impacted members.

 

If you have any questions reach out to your Cornerstone Senior Marketing rep.

300+ Medications Dropped by Insurance in 2020 (Ellie Riley, GoodRx)

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The two largest PBMs — managing pharmacy benefits for over 200 million Americans — are Express Scripts and Caremark. At the start of 2019, they removed over 90 medications from their formularies. Now, at the beginning of 2020, they are removing over 300 medications.  Read the full article here.

Agent Pipeline Joins Forces with Integrity Marketing Group

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DALLAS — January 28, 2020 — Integrity Marketing Group, the nation’s largest independent distributor of life and health insurance products, today announced the acquisition of Agent Pipeline. “Agent Pipeline’s choice to partner with Integrity is a game-changer for us in the way we serve the overall insurance marketplace and produce unrivaled results for our agents, agencies, and insurance carrier partners,” said Bryan W. Adams, Co-Founder & CEO of Integrity.

Read the full Press Release

Centene & WellCare Combination Completed – Message from Centene

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Centene’s full message regarding the Centene & WellCare combination:

We are pleased to announce that the combination of Centene Corporation and WellCare Health Plans is complete. The combining of Centene and WellCare has successfully created a premier healthcare enterprise focused on government-sponsored healthcare programs. No one company has brought a private sector focused approach to all facets of government healthcare – Medicaid, Medicare, the Health Insurance Marketplace and military services until today.

What does this mean for our Brokers?

  • Stronger infrastructure leads to stronger tools and resources that Allwell will be able to provide to our brokers, agencies and field staff through this merger.
  • Centene will continue to honor the relationships established independently by each of our two companies. No disruption to existing partnerships will take place at this time.
  • There will be no changes to any existing broker or agency contracts or hierarchies during 2020 as a result of the combination.
  • Our brokers and the role they play in our distribution structure will still remain our top priority for both organizations.

What does this mean for your clients?

This transaction has many benefits for your clients, our members.

  • Immediately following the close, there are no changes to the Medicare member experience within WellCare or Centene.
  • Centene and WellCare will build on both companies’ strong commitments to the communities in which our members live and work by offering competitive and comprehensive healthcare plans.
  • The combined company will enhance its efforts to address the social determinants of health such as food insecurity, housing instability, homelessness, unemployment, lack of access to transportation and other non-medical barriers to health.

What’s the big picture?

This combination further reinforces our commitment to being the preeminent leader in the Medicare space. We value our partners, and look forward to continuing to provide healthcare solutions that meet the unique needs of the communities in each state. Most importantly, we are committed to our partnership and working together to continue providing access to the high-quality cost-effective healthcare solutions we have always provided.

 

For further information please read our Corporate Press Release or go to our website at https://centene-wellcare.com/.

Thank you for you partnership and continued support.

 

Allwell Medicare Advantage

Humana’s High Deductible Plan G Now Available

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Humana’s High Deductible Plan G are now available to sell in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana effective immediately. Click here to read more from Humana.

If you have any questions, reach out to your Cornerstone Senior Marketing representative.