Recently I was contacted by a nice couple that have been health insurance agents for over 20 years. Because I seemed to be steeped in the Healthcare Reform implementation, they wanted to know my opinion of the future of health insurance agents in the market place. While I was not bullish on the future of health insurance agents in the coming age of Health Insurance Exchanges, I thought we might still be able to provide a service.
Shortly after our communication, Kaiser Health News reported that several health insurance carriers were opening retail locations to sell their plans directly consumers. The point this drives home is that large companies, with a stake in healthcare reform, are positioning themselves to take advantage of the impending Individual Mandate that all people must purchase health insurance.
Even in this digital internet website commerce driven age, there are still people, for what ever reason, who wish to purchase certain goods and services from a real live person. So what does that mean for the health insurance agent? Well, I might find myself sitting inside a Walmart discussing deductibles and coinsurance with my neighbors. The other real possibility is that health insurance agents go the way of the horse and buggy when the automobile caught on with the public. Health insurance agents may become the new dinosaurs.
In one of my last missives to the health insurance couple that were concerned about losing their entire income to Healthcare Reform changes, I offered my new business perspective, “Successful people learn to work within the system.” The new system for acquiring health insurance is emerging and we will undoubtedly see more changes in the coming months and years. Successful people will capitalize on those changes to keep themselves relevant.
David E. Williams of the Health Business Blog also weighed in on the emerging health insurance retail locations in his latest blog post:
Health insurance store: Not in my back yard please!
David E. Williams is co-founder of MedPharma Partners LLC
February 28th, 2012 by David E. Williams of the Health business blog
The town center neat my home has a lot to recommend it: restaurants, cafes, book stores, clothing stores, drug stores, food stores, specialty shops and more. But about 7 years ago I noticed a lot of undesirable shops moving in: namely cell phone stores. Every major carrier including Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint –and even some minor players– like Clear has its own storefront. Some are remarkably big. In my view, all of them are pretty useless and detract from the vibrancy of the neighborhood. I’m hoping the day will come soon when the rationale for these stores evaporates and the stores can be put to some other use.
More recently tons of banks have been setting up shop. Also pretty useless from my standpoint –do we really need more than ATMs and the occasional safe deposit box?– but apparently they are grabbing up space as a kind of interactive billboard to fight for share of wallet among an attractive demographic.
I guess I should get used to these blights on the neighborhood because it sounds like something even worse could be on its way: retail stores to sell health insurance. As implementation of the Affordable Care Act proceeds, health insurers are looking for new ways to find retail customers and to bypass brokers. And you guessed it, they’re opening up retail stores to do so. A Kaiser Health News article has more, including a report of a Blue Cross Blue Shield store in Florida, Highmark in Pennsylvania and a 16,000 square foot UnitedHealthcare store in Queens.
So as much as I’d like to see the demise of the phone stores and banks, I really don’t want to see them replaced by the Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts, Fallon, Steward and Blue Cross Blue Shield stores. But I fear that day may be near.
Is this post curmudgeonly enough for you?
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Another interesting post on the same topic:
Aetna CEO: Health Insurers Face Extinction
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/HIMSS12-Aetna-CEO-insurers-face-extinction-44041-1.html
