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[Few] Insurance Agents Learn About Modern Health Economics  

Staff Writers  

As a registered health underwriter [RHU], insurance counselor, long-term care or life insurance agent, it seems that almost everyone today is also acquiring a general securities license, or becoming a “financial advisor.”

Introduction 

Currently, about 240,000 of the nation’s life insurance agents – down from more than one million in 1965 – are being pressured to move toward financial planning as distribution of insurance products over the Internet spreads like wildfire.

Meanwhile, the same insurance and investment companies that are knocking on your door are also courting the medical professionals with their practice enhancement and risk management programs. 

The Pondering 

So, even if you were not interested in doing financial planning for doctor’s, you have seen the status of the American College erode as your own business has declined because of the World Wide Web. 

And, in the eyes of your former golden goose doctor-clients, you may have become a charlatan as everyone is clamoring for a piece of your insurance business and cloaking it off in the guise of the contemporary topic of the day; medical practice management, healthcare business consulting and personal financial planning for physicians.  

Think this is an exaggerated statement? A prior – and oft repeated – survey first conducted by Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group of New York, found insurance agents ranked last in having the trust of a wide selection of the public!  

So you ponder and consider how to regain this lost trust and try to understand contemporary managed medical care and the current healthcare industrial complex?  

But, how do you learn about it at this stage in your career? 

• What ever happened to the traditional indemnity health insurance, with its deductibles and 80/20 patient responsibility?
• Where did the whole-life insurance policy buyer go, with its fat-profits for me and my sponsoring company?
• How did I become a dinosaur insurance sales-agent?  

The Realization 

It was so easy to sell insurance in the good old days – your product provided good coverage – and the agent made a nice sales profit. So what – if it was expensive for the client?  Now, you realize that making a living will be more difficult in the future.  Like all the struggling collateral advisors in healthcare, you find yourself asking; how do I talk the talk and walk the walk – in this new era of insurance change and health reform turmoil?  

The Epiphany 

Slowly, as you study and re-engineer, you become empowered with knowledge for new risk management derivatives that provide added-value to physician clients.

And, you learn to integrate physician-focused financial planning concepts with medical practice management principles.  You learn something about health-economics and you seek to become a “fiduciary” and actually work for the client; not the insurance company. 

You are no longer just an insurance salesman, but are becoming a trusted advisor for the medical community.  You are slowly recreating your career and may successfully avoid the managed care “ripple effect”, after all. 

Educational information: www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.com

Related Info: http://www.jbpub.com/catalog/9780763733421

Filed under: Insurance Matters | Tagged: Insurance Matters |