The federal agency that oversees Medicare says some Medicare plan lead-generation firms are confusing and infuriating consumers.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants plan issuers to take charge of making third-party marketing organizations, or TPMOs, behave.
CMS — an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — has included new TPMO rules in a set of draft regulations for the Medicare Advantage plan and Medicare Part D prescription drug plan markets.
What the Draft Rules Mean
For agents, brokers and other Medicare plan distribution players, the new CMS proposal means that they could start to face what amounts to a health insurance version of annuity sellers' best-interest standard.
The guidelines could give traditional brick-and-mortar producers help competing with national, call center-based Medicare plan sellers.
For life insurance and annuity sellers, implementation of the proposal could eventually lead to the Medicare plan sales standards influencing the evolution of life and annuity sales standards.
Proposal Details
CMS plans to:
- Define TPMOs as "organizations that are compensated to perform lead generation, marketing, sales, and enrollment related functions as a part of the chain of enrollment, that is the steps taken by a beneficiary from becoming aware of a plan or plans to making an enrollment decision."
- Require a TPMO to put the following standard disclaimer in a prominent place: "We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to those plans we do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options."
- Make Medicare plan issuers responsible for the activities of TPMOs in the same way that they are now responsible for the activities of agents, brokers and other "first tier, downstream or related entities."
The Thinking
CMS officials say in the introduction to the draft regulations that they developed the new TPMO proposal because their agency has received hundreds of complaints from consumers who did not understand how Medicare plan marketing organizations that called them got their information.
CMS staffers reacted to the complaints by listening to recordings of TPMO sales calls.
"Many of these calls demonstrate that beneficiaries are confused by these TPMOs, including confusion regarding who they are speaking to, what plans the TPMOs represent, and that the beneficiary may be unaware that they are enrolling into a new plan during these phone conversations," officials say. "CMS acknowledges that in some instances TPMOs can serve a role in helping beneficiaries find a plan that best meets their needs. However, CMS believes additional regulatory oversight is required to protect Medicare beneficiaries from bad actors in this space."
Regulation Nuts and Bolts
The TPMO regulation proposal is part of a 360-page packet that includes many other proposals, such as a proposal for requiring plans to tell consumers, in the top 15 languages used in the United States, that interpreter services are available for free.
