“The employer has no one — not the carrier, the broker, the third party administrator, the pharmacy benefit manager, the hospital or the doctor — sitting on their side of the table, with a shared incentive to lower healthcare cost.”
– Nelson Griswold, president of Bottom Line Solutions in Nashville, Tenn.
$50K for Fully-Insured Clients: Sales Bonus or a Bribe?
Posted on July 19, 2018
FROM EMPLOYEE BENEFIT ADVISOR:
Cort Olsen writes in EBA that an ad that appeared in January of this year by BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina offered brokers a $50,000 sales bonus if they could convince their clients to enroll in their fully-insured health plan.
Olsen wrote, “While BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina claims fully-insured is the best option for many large-group employers — it offers consistent cost and quality of coverage to bring greater peace of mind to both the employer and employee, according to their ad — many advisers say this is nothing more than a cash grab for the insurance carriers and the brokers who sign on. –
“This goes straight to the question of who does the broker work for, which is whoever signs the paycheck,” Griswold says, answering his own question. “The employer has no one — not the carrier, the broker, the third party administrator, the pharmacy benefit manager, the hospital or the doctor — sitting on their side of the table, with a shared incentive to lower healthcare cost.” – Nelson Griswold, president of Bottom Line Solutions in Nashville, Tenn.
