The ability to support insurance agents in the field is a key factor in marketers’ success. Fortunately, YourMedicare provides numerous platforms and tools to fortify the relationship between marketers and agents. Case in point: the SunFire Matrix, incorporated in the YourMedicare Enrollment Center (YMEC).
The SunFire Matrix
Especially useful during AEP, SunFire collects and distills data from more than 80 insurance carriers, offering 1,300-plus Medicare Advantage (MA) and prescription drug plans (PDPs). Based on the customer’s personal information, SunFire identifies the ideal plan with the lowest annual cost to enroll clients in real-time.
Two years ago, the YMEC became the first national marketing organization (NMO) to launch this online tool for use by agents, and a significant number of benefits have become apparent.
Top-Ten Benefits of the Sunfire Matrix Platform
- The platform is available at no cost to contracted agents.
- Agents can enter information and securely retrieve their client’s drug data securely. Agents can then quote several plans at the same time.
- Agents save time, help clients save money and enjoy more sales opportunities as they engage in a CMS-compliant presentation and answer beneficiaries’ questions.
- In accordance with CMS guidelines, agents and customers are able to electronically complete a scope of appointment (SOA) and save it in the client’s YourMedicare profile.
- When quoting to customers, most MA and PDP carriers where agents have appointments are easily identified among the options.
- Any plan currently held by a customer can be displayed for an easily-viewed comparison with other available plan options.
- Agents can send a secure email link to customers enabling clients to digitally sign and self-enroll.
- As an alternative to enrolling through email, agents can send a secure link via text message to their customers for enrollment using a digital signature.
- Agents can also create their own personalized landing page (PURL), where clients can compare plans and digitally self-enroll.
- The enrollment system provides a cloud-based storage system that meets the CMS mandatory 10-year retention requirement.
Kelsey Villagrana, director of Managed Care Operations, YourMedicare, comments, “SunFire is a fantastic tool that gives your agent’s the ability to submit applications for all their Medicare Advantage carriers in one easy-to-use site.” She tells marketers that the platform allows their agents to manage business in one cohesive location, “making logging off and on to separate carrier portals a thing of the past.”
Valuable Agent Recruiting Tool
Matt Graham, vice president, Managed Care, YourMedicare, points out that the YMEC is a valuable asset for marketers to leverage in their agent recruitment efforts. He says, “Agents prefer to have their carrier contracts aligned with one of the YourMedicare NMOs so they can have access to quote and enrollment features for all of their carriers in one easy-to-access portal.”
Among the SunFire features that most strongly resonate with agents are:
- The potential for huge client savings on prescription medications
- A uniform application across carriers and their products
- The ability to send SOAs and applications via text message
- Personalized landing pages
- Auto-populated primary care physicians and provider IDs in the application
Marketers who want to go the extra mile in introducing agents to SunFire have that option as well. They can set up a demonstration login with a fake profile, which will allow agents to become familiar with the site’s features and functions and then train their agents to use the platform.
Agent use of SunFire also helps make the marketer’s job easier. As Kelsey explains, “SunFire agents are permissioned by raw carrier files, so there is no need to update an agent’s status, keeping the marketer’s workload down.”
As marketers and agents alike ramp up for the busy AEP season, there will be no better time to take advantage of the YourMedicare Enrollment Center. Visit www.yourmedicareresources.com to learn more about the YMEC, including a training video and an online Medicare FAQ.
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