Brian M. Kalish

In the first year of open enrollment on its private benefit exchange, brokerage Lovitt & Touché made some mistakes. But the firm won’t be repeating them, says the Phoenix-based brokerage’s senior vice president.

Broker group hopeful hotline is “first step” in making enrollment through federally-facilitated marketplace an even playing field for agents and brokers

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awards $7 million more than last year to grantees in 34 states.

Notable gap exists between what employers are demanding and what brokers are supplying

A PBE's consumer-facing portal may be "the sexy piece," an Accenture exec says, but many clients are looking for help beyond open enrollment.

Pilot program for Maryland Health Connection will have call centers directly transfer consumers to a broker to finish enrollment.

Those calling for repeal of the Affordable Care Act are split on what to do should the law be repealed.

Public health insurance exchange decision support tools improved somewhat in year two open enrollment compared to year one, but still have a way to go, research shows.

Some have compared the changes in health care to the changes that occurred in the retirement industry 30 years ago when companies switched from pension plans to 401(k) plans and put the responsibility on consumers to pick investments. But George Tzinas, chief experience officer at BenefitAlign, says it is not the same.

The uninsured rate in the United States is at one of the lowest points since tracking began, and in states with state-based exchanges the uninsured rate is lower than those using the federal marketplace. But is there enough incentive for brokers to continue to play a vital role in exchange enrollment?

For a private exchange to be successful, it needs to offer a full service solution in a box, says David Holton, vice president of private exchange business development at HealthPlan Services. His Tampa, Fla.-based company’s My Consumer Link is an individual exchanges for group brokers to offer. These brokers, Holton says, don’t want to walk away from the money of the individual sales, but don’t have the time to commit to it.

As private exchange technology providers are acquired, some brokers question what happens downstream to firms they partnered with. Along with the acquisitions, some brokers are not yet seeing a return on investment from their exchange, so what are their long-term plans?

The federal health insurance marketplace may have issued subsides to persons not eligible to receive them during the first open enrollment period, a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General has found.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has awarded consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton a $202 million contract to be the marketplace system integrator, or general contractor, which includes the federally-facilitated health insurance marketplace, parts of the state-run marketplaces and more.

Despite potential savings offered, voluntary programs that provide discounts on products, services and tickets to employees are rarely used and seeing almost no growth year-over-year.

Working in partnership with USI and GoHealth, the payroll firm’s platform will serve populations with employer-provided benefits as well as those who must purchase through public exchanges.

For the first time, brokers and agents will be eligible to receive continuing education credits through the training, which is required to eligible to sell on the federal marketplace.

Three Republican senators have sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing concern for the “lack of oversight for more than $1 billion in federal grants” given to state-based marketplaces.

State-based marketplaces were overall quite successful in retaining enrollees, however, a large number of consumers shopping within the marketplace during 2015 open enrollment decided to switch plans based on the price of services offered.

There are three types of brokers: the transactional broker, the Zenefits-style broker and the new school premier broker — but soon only one of them will be successful.