Don’t Count Insurance Brokers Out
Healthcare has always been a three-legged stool – with providers, payers and patients each needing to play their part to make the system work properly. But today, healthcare has become far more complex. Even the Affordable Care Act, which was designed to make healthcare more accessible, has added confusion and prompted questions many consumers are not fully equipped to answer.
One route consumers and business owners can take to help guide them through the healthcare purchasing process is to turn to the Internet. In fact, healthcare is among the most searched topics online, and it has been for years. But it’s one thing to have a virtual vault of information at your fingertips and quite another to have understandable, actionable data from a trusted source.
Healthcare provider quality reports vary significantly. And it’s sometimes hard to know what to believe, since online resources often have different ways of presenting information on provider networks and health plan benefits. Paired with the alphabet world of HMOs, PPOs, EPOs, and HSAs, it’s enough to make the average consumer’s head spin.
All of this makes the role of the health insurance broker more important than ever, and it’s time the healthcare community fully appreciates the valuable part brokers play in making sure America’s healthcare system works.
Some might ask “Why does an individual or a business need a broker?” That is sort of a funny question when you consider that with many other important aspects of life – from home purchase to financial investments – people naturally turn to a qualified expert to help them with the decision-making process. So why not healthcare? It is, after all, an incredibly important and personal decision.
Good brokers don’t just sell health insurance, they know health insurance. They can show clients a variety of plans, explain both the benefits and potential shortcomings of each, review the latest healthcare trends and then help pick a plan that best fits the buyer’s individual, family or business (and employee) needs.
Once the coverage decision is made, the broker can coordinate the process of enrollment and/or changing the benefits package as life evolves through marriage, birth of child, employment changes, etc.
The healthcare marketplace has changed dramatically with the introduction this year of new government-run health insurance exchanges and increased offerings from private exchanges like CaliforniaChoice and others. The best brokers have spent the past 18 months gearing up for this new environment, and today they have the expertise, information, and technology support necessary to help consumers and businesses evaluate the coverage options available through an exchange.
It is the health insurance broker, more than anyone else, who can provide the unbiased recommendations that individuals, families, and business leaders need to make intelligent, well-informed health insurance decisions. And it is the broker who they can turn to after the sale to provide ongoing service for routine matters as well as serious policy interpretation issues.
When consumers choose the “right” health plan, there won’t be any surprises of what is or isn’t covered. They will know from the start if their doctor and hospital are included and what to expect relative to cost, access and quality. By working with a broker, they will have a trusted, personal resource to turn to when they have questions throughout the year. All of this will lead to greater satisfaction with and trust in the healthcare system, and that benefits everyone.
Jessica Word is president of the Word & Brown General Agency in Orange.
