New rules for Medicare brokers
Sales agents and brokers who sign up beneficiaries for Medicare Advantage and drug benefit plans received additional compensation limits from the Bush administration after complaints about enrollment tactics.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a new interim final rule Nov. 10 stipulating that agents must be paid fair-market-value fees based on previous commissions in the area. Commissions for renewing a beneficiary's policy in future years must be 50% of the fee that the agents received in the first year of the six-year compensation cycle under which they operate.
The new rule builds on a regulation CMS issued in September requiring that brokers' commissions in future years be limited to discourage the practice of "churning" beneficiaries between different plans every year to maximize the fees.
Medicare private insurers have been under scrutiny following allegations of unethical and aggressive enrollment tactics by sales agents.
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