How to Fix the Medicare Buying Process? Simple Tech

It will not come as news to anyone who has chosen a Medicare plan that the system for it, as it stands, is seriously flawed. Right now, most older Americans make their choices for Medicare plans with an agent over the phone – not the best option for navigating a complex decision like selecting one of the myriad of available plans. To put the sheer number of plans available into perspective, data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows the number of Medicare Advantage plans available has increased in 2022 to the highest number in the past decade, with a total of 3,834 plans available nationwide.

Frankly, the system is outdated and in need of serious reform. The telephone is a terrible means of communication for this kind of task – it’s impersonal and not suited for detailing the intricacies of Medicare options. 

To make things worse, the agents on the other end of the phone are likely undertrained and incentivized to get the sale done as fast as possible. According to research from the Commonwealth Fund, nearly all (96%) of Medicare Advantage and Part D plans contract with agents, who are not required to represent all available plans.

Within this context, it’s clear how mis-selling of Medicare options can happen.

But how – or rather where – do we begin to correct the system? Some argue that it’s up to the regulators to change the rules of the marketplace; however, in my view, it’s not the regulators’ job to develop new tools. The solution is simple: technology that is designed to solve the Medicare buying process.

It’s often said that the property and casualty insurance is 10 years behind the tech sector in terms of digitization. If that’s true, then Medicare is 10 years behind P&C. The change to technology for choosing Medicare plans is long overdue – it’s time to make tech work for older Americans.

The new generation of older Americans are internet savvy and deserve a new system that allows them to make their Medicare decisions themselves, while being presented with the available options – not those from an undertrained agent over the phone. A web-based platform for choosing Medicare plans, like our own platform Hella Health, removes the pushy salesperson from the equation altogether and offers a much-welcomed alternative to the current hard selling – and mis-selling – that permeates the Medicare buying process.