Educational and sales presentations can take place in a healthcare setting, and this collaboration between providers and agents can be helpful to bring information to potential plan members. Be very careful, however, not to let this engagement influence interactions with members and their choice of plans or providers.
Activities Planned by Providers
Providers will sometimes refer patients to other sources of information, which includes plan marketing representatives. If you and your agents have relationships with providers, they can provide you a referral opportunity. Should you get the chance to present for an educational event with the provider, bring along business reply cards and provide them at the event for a greater chance at capturing leads.
Plan Sponsored Activities
Agents can host sales presentations at healthcare settings, as long as they are conducted in the common areas. You can plan your event for the common entryways, vestibules, waiting rooms, cafeterias, or a community/recreational/conference room, for example. Do not conduct your event in any restricted spaces where treatment or provider interaction takes place, such as an exam room, patient room or the pharmacy counter area. You can display your communication materials that are free of specific plan information anywhere in the healthcare setting.
Prohibited Communication for Agents and Providers
Materials. Agents are not allowed to market the provider’s services or practice, or to provide information about any cost-sharing waivers or free services offered by the provider. An exception to that rule would be if those services are part of a plan’s benefit package. Do not recommend a provider or share your opinions of which provider is best. Submit any marketing material that mentions a provider to your carrier for a review before you distribute it. Check with your carriers about their marketing rules.
Gifts or Exchanges. Agents are not to offer or give anything to clients to persuade them to choose any specific provider. You, as an agent, cannot directly or indirectly accept anything from a provider in exchange for communicating about that particular provider. That means that you and your fellow agents must not accept promises of referrals or accept donations, sponsorships, gifts, cash, or anything of that nature from the providers.
Engaging with Providers. Your actions in coordination with these providers cannot influence your interactions with clients about their choice of provider, nor can you influence a provider to steer clients to a certain choice of plans. Providers are not allowed to steer patients toward a particular plan, according to the Medicare Communications and Marketing Guidelines.
