Bernard Health, Nashville-based health insurance advisory firm, is strengthening its partnership model with financial advisors to help individuals navigate their healthcare options.
"The combination of high costs, a constantly changing regulatory environment and insurers pulling out of markets is causing worried consumers to turn to financial planners for advice on what to do about healthcare costs," according to Bernard Health.
According to Alex Tolbert, founder of Bernard Health, these financial planners and advisors not only see healthcare as falling within their scope as fiduciaries, but also as an opportunity to deliver better, more well-rounded service to their clients.
Financial firms have partnered with Bernard Health for years. Now Bernard Health has made investments to make its partnerships with financial advisors stronger – to be an extension of the financial advisor's team. Financial advisory practices can now add a "healthcare extension" with Bernard Health to the services they offer, even enabling Bernard's team of qualified, licensed and noncommissioned healthcare advisors to help clients in the financial advisor's own office.
Bernard Health can partner with all types of financial advisors, but the ones who see the most value from a healthcare extension meet two criteria: they see healthcare as material to the financial well-being of their clients and they see how healthcare might fall within their scope as fiduciaries, according to Bernard Health. This can include CFPs, but it also includes investment advisors and broker-dealer reps who have a planning component to their financial advisory practice.
Financial advisors that partner with Bernard Health will give their clients access to Bernard's suite of products and services, including InsureAdvise (which helps consumers evaluate health plan options and identify strategies for managing health expenses in general), MediGuidance (which helps guide clients who are or will soon be Medicare-eligible) and COBRACounsel (which helps people evaluate COBRA versus other options). Additionally, Bernard advisors help clients of financial advisors track and audit medical bills as well as prepare advanced care plans.
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