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March 28, 2014 at 06:48 AM
A Senate Democrat is trying to get Health and Human Services to warm up to the agents and brokers still trying to work with the public exchange system.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., has included two agent access bills in a package of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act improvement bills she’s introducing.
One bill, the Enhancing Access for Agents and Brokers Act, would create a dedicated telephone hotline for broker enrollment and policy questions; require HHS to post a directory of exchange certified agents on the HealthCare.gov; and fix an agent identification issue that’s plagued exchange agents for more than six months.
The bill also would let enrollees add agents’ names and national producer numbers to their applications at any point during the enrollment process without having to start the process over, to ensure producers get paid for the work they’ve done helping the enrollees.
The bill would also require HHS to tell agents about any policy changes that affect the commercial qualified health plans sold through the exchanges or exchange enrollment within five days.
B. Ronnell Nolan, president of Health Agents for America, has noted for months that HHS and its divisions publish a weekly newsletter for navigators but don’t make that newsletter or a similar newsletter available for agents and brokers.
