Another Diluted Sales Season

“Keep pushing,” she belted while romping around the sales floor. The assistant operations manager frequently stopped to broadcast demands to supervisors — on a hissing walkie-talkie — or to answer an agent’s questions. You could hear her through the company-issued headset better than the hollow voices on your phone calls.

This demand rang out countless times during the major Medicare sales season in that overflow call center: October 15 through December 7 each year.

Keep pushing: what came to mind was birthing and praying for easing.

I was selling Medicare Advantage plans or prescription drug plans to the public who had Medicare. However, I was also required to help, in an advisory capacity, many retirees who received Medicare Advantage plans through their former employers. This activity included describing plan benefits and looking up doctors and prescriptions without the possibility of selling plans to them.

Many of these souls paid much higher monthly premiums than their age mates in the general public. Dropping their retiree plans, however, might also knock out other benefits such as Medicare Part B rebates and dental and life insurance.

Sales opportunities were also lost due to needing to dispatch field agents to people who have both Medicare and Medicaid and wanted a Medicare Advantage…