HHS seeks input on plan to register 250,000 agents for health exchange

Posted: February 13, 2013

Filed in: Health Insurance News, Maryland, National, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia
See more: CMS, HHS, PPACA

The government is looking for more than 250,000 agents and brokers who want to work through the new federal health insurance exchange system (HIX), and seeking public comment about the information it will collect from those producers.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), will provide more information on how producers can work with the exchanges in a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Feb. 14.

The notice is required under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 that requires federal agencies to allow public input when CMS begins a new major initiative.

See supporting documentation here: HHS Agent-Broker Information Collection

Online health insurance exchanges in each state are mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and must be “live” by Oct. 1 so consumers can begin buying health insurance that begins coverage on Jan. 1, 2014. On that day, all Americans must be covered by some form of health insurance (private or government-sponsored), as required by the sweeping federal health reform legislation.

More than half the states have defaulted to an exchange run by the federal government. Those that will be part of the Federally Facilitated Exchanges (FFEs) include Pennsylvania, New Jersey Virginia and 23 other states. Delaware will operate an exchange in conjunction with CMS.

Maryland and New York, along with 22 other states and Washington, D.C., will create and operate their own exchanges.

CMS is seeking comments on its plan to collect information about the agents and brokers that will go through the FFE registration process. It has 254,095 as the number of producers who will register to be part of the exchange.

Information collected by CMS will include name, license status, issuer appointments, and training and continuing education information, as well as other pertinent information.

“CMS will use the collected data for oversight and monitoring of agent/brokers to ensure compliance with the ACA provisions,” the CMS/HHS document said.

CMS will also provide training and exams through an online Learning Management System (LMS), which will track producer training history and allow that information to be shared with the health insurance exchange.

Producers will likely have to register annually, and CMS estimates it will take nearly five hours to complete the registration process.

Comments will be due 60 days after the Federal Register is published.

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7 Responses

Health Insurance Exchanges Says:
February 13th, 2013 at 12:54 pm
What agents want is RESIDUAL fair compensation and an amicably democratic working alliance with as few hurdling restrictions as possible while still adhering to compliance.
Ross Schriftman Says:
February 13th, 2013 at 3:14 pm
If this ends up like Medicare Part D where agents received about $25 per year per policy and tons of conflicting rules and restrictions then it will probably be not worth it.
James Goodacre RHU,REBC Says:
February 14th, 2013 at 12:40 pm
If that is the case then why did I see the Calif. Exchange Website not mention anything about talk to your local broker for help?
Maria Says:
February 14th, 2013 at 1:16 pm
This could be a great opportunity for Agents if it is structured like the Medicare Care Advantage plans in Pennsylvania, where compliance and trainings is addressed and compensations are adequate.
Anon Says:
February 15th, 2013 at 1:45 pm
Interesting that nothing is mentioned about the compensation. If it is anything like NY for health, I know my office won’t be even applying.
Kenneth Richter Says:
February 15th, 2013 at 1:51 pm
Was reading your producer advisor council news letter where you are looking at ways to certify compliance by licensed agents in Maryland to become authorized to offer health plans within the exchanges.

It appears that the primary intention the certification requirement by HHS.gov is to ensure agents don’t churn or steer applicants away from the exchange plans to offer traditional plans as an alternative. There are many agents within the state that or presently certified to offer Federal Medicare Advantage plans as well as Part D prescription plans.

This type of agent already understands how to work with the government sponsored health plans. They are required to maintain a Maryland life and health license as well as required to complete a passing 90% grade level of understanding of gov’t rules in order to certify to offer these plans.

http://www.AHIP.org currently offers this certification process for agents on a national level to meet CMS training requirements.
They also are currently offering this certification training module as of June 2012 .
They will allow agents additional training modules as both state and Federal mandates are finalized later this year.

Agents currently pay a fee of $100 to this educational organization to acquire the training necessary to offer these gov’t plans.
AHIP.org has told us they hope to gain HHS.gov approval later this year once the Federal government has finalized its certification requirements.

Agents can as of now, began the certification process in anticipation of the release of the exchange plans on or before October of this year!
Please contact me if you have additional questions.

To learn more about our intentions visit us at:

National Health Agent Network : https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=4366544&trk=anet_ug_hm

National Health Exchange Network https://sites.google.com/site/nationalhealthexchangenetwork/
Gail Hiller-Lee Says:
February 20th, 2013 at 11:54 am
Do we have any idea where they came up with that number? Are they “capping” the amount of brokers they feel they want to work with? Is there a criteria for becoming an accepted broker?