CMS to review Medicare Advantage sales commissions

Not only the medicare advantage plans but the HMOs that have contracted with medicaid need to be reviewed as well. . All they do is make it harder for doctors to treat patients by increasing needless layers of authorization. CMS is going about the whole business the wrong way. It is based on the premise that doctors are crooks and need to be micromanaged by high school dropouts or those who could not finish a college degree in the sciences! Save a bundle by removing obstacles to care. Do not play games with doctors. CMS can help us by:
1) scrapping HIPAA and making it mandatory for all pharmacies to report all medications of every patient to a central database which can then be securely tapped by doctors. This is more useful than E.prescribing.
2) Similarly all labs , investigations should be reported to a central repository which should be available to doctors with permission from patient.
3) Access to patient database should be at the level of patient, not HMOs or hosptials. Patients should be given a smart card to quickly allow valid people to see their records.
I really wish CMS advisers , particularly the doctors who advise them visit my office to understand how to do it right!...
Health IT is easier to implement when the custodian of information is the patient.

I think it is terrible that CMS can regulate what insurance agents are paid to do their job. There has only been a few rouge agents that has caused all of this to happen. Why didn't CMS go after these agents instead of punishing everyone. Independent agents assume all costs for running their business such as leads, advertising, calls, travel expense, etc. All of these expenses has raised but now are commissions have truly lowered. I do not think CMS is truly concerned witht he beneficary, I think somehow they are going to save more money by doing this. The average independent agent works hard for his commission and they treat their clients well because this is their paycheck. They want to retain their clients because many times that relationship can actually provide further sales by a client wanting life insurance or something else down the road.
It sounds like CMS wants the independent agents out of the business.
They say this will stop churning but all I see is that the agents who churned will now churn as twice as many to get the same results they did before.

teresa , i agrre with you. Its like the cms and the insurance are throwing the indy agents under the bus. I sometimes pay 500$ alone in marketing and gas in a week and to now only get 200 a client?
this year humana has tripled their rates. I dont think many agents will "churn" them b/c of low comm. The one thing that gets me is, the insurance companies still get all of their money

I think CMS's involvement may have a reverse effect. I believe they want these so called rogue agents to leave the industry and there also punishing the good agents. Every article I see says that the commissions are excessive and looking at them over a five or six year period, one may agree. What isn't mentioned is the fact that the insurance companies change their benefits yearly and some of the benefit changes are drastic. So, I guess I just won't care when that happens and not worry about trying to find a better plan for the precious beneficiaries. I agree with Kenny, the plans get worse, the insurance companies get the same reimbursement and agents who go out drive 200 miles a day, can't call any prospective clients, get less. Sounds like a great deal.