The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is taking a firm stand on the discussion about how the navigators’ role varies from brokers and agents – they’re different. After testifying before an April hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Gary Cohen, the director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, part of CMS, told EBA that navigators will be supplying objective information, while brokers will continue in their role of advising. “They are not making recommendations, they’re not selling,” Cohen said about navigators.
“Some things are the same; they will [both] provide education and inform people about options available to them. But I think you go to an agent because you want to ask the agent the bottom-line question, ‘What do you think I should do?’ And if a navigator is asked that question they’re going to say, ‘I can’t tell you what to do.’”
