Insurers Propose Banning Certain Medicare Advantage Plan Marketing Tactics

Main Category: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 06 Mar 2008 - 10:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

America's Health Insurance Plans officials on Tuesday met with the Senate Finance Committee to propose rules that would stop aggressive marketing tactics for Medicare Advantage plans, CQ Today reports. Insurers finalized the request for new rules at an AHIP board meeting on Monday. Among tactics the insurers say should be banned are cold-calling, door-to-door sales, cross-selling other products and offering inducements to push enrollment.

Many of the industry's recommendations are similar to provisions included in legislation (S 2687) introduced on Monday by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). Snowe's bill also would increase the open enrollment period to give beneficiaries more time to decide which plan suits them best, and it would create a complaint reporting system.

Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said that AHIP's recommendations would be worked into broader Medicare legislation this spring (Armstrong, CQ Today, 3/4). AHIP will work with the committee in drafting the marketing language in the bill (Johnson, CongressDaily, 3/5). Baucus also said that CMS regulators will help develop the new rules (CQ Today, 3/4). CMS is working on MA plan marketing regulations, but Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Congress might be able to act more quickly.

AHIP President Karen Ignagni said, "We wanted to communicate very clearly to the Finance Committee leaders and the members that this is not a voluntary effort. This is not an industry effort to do it ourselves. This is a call for additional regulation." Baucus said, "I think to the industry's credit, they've made a lot of changes. They say, and I take them at face value, they want the trust of seniors so they can sell their products," adding, "I still believe there's more that can be done" (CongressDaily, 3/5).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.