Starting October 1, 2022, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is requiring all parties that advertise or sell Medicare Advantage and/or Prescription drug plans must record all telephone calls (this is not new for us as we have been doing this for years for quality assurance and training purposes) and must recite a disclaimer that will be addressed below.
Reason For These Changes
You’ve seen the ads…JJ Walker yelling at you to “Get your MONEEEEEE” and Joe Namath telling you to “Check your Zip Code”. These advertisements are EXTREMLY misleading and have caused great confusion in the Medicare market. So much so that during the past year CMS has recorded an unprecedented number of consumer complaints. These are mainly due from seniors calling for information from these advertisements or answering one of the 10 calls per day they get from an oversees call center and they are getting pushed in to plans that don’t truly meet their needs.
New Disclaimer Requirement
The first change that CMS has implemented is that within the first few minutes of a sales call or meeting the following disclaimer must be read:
“We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to those plans we do offer in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options”
You will notice this statement is covered when you call us. We read this off on all incoming calls prior to you even being connected with your broker.
We are independent brokers licensed in multiple states and therefore cannot possibly be contracted with every single carrier offered in every county of each state that we service. In addition not all carriers contract with agents/brokers therefore it really is close to impossible for anyone to be contracted with all carriers.
Recorded Phone Calls
This is nothing new to us. We have been recording our calls for years as it just makes good business practice. But now all parties are supposed to record these calls that are offering and presenting Medicare Advantage and/or Prescription Drug plans. We must store these recordings for a minimum of 10 years. This is to ensure we have documentation of your interaction with us in the event of a potential complaint that CMS would investigate.