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Sachin H. Jain: Changing the role of the ‘broker’ could be a massive expansion of the healthcare workforce

Sachin Jain/LinkedIn

Jul 12, 2024, 08:36

Sachin H. Jain: Changing the role of the ‘broker’ could be a massive expansion of the healthcare workforce

Sachin H. Jain shared on LinkedIn:

“Early in my career, I met Medicare Advantage sales representatives and brokers who did far more than just sell.

They worked as community health workers for the people they served.

The first of these was Theresa Martinez with whom I first worked at CareMore Health and now work with at SCAN.

Theresa and her colleagues made appointments.

They checked in on frail elderly and helped address loneliness.

They made sure prescriptions and refills were filled.

They motivated behavior change in people who needed help.

With increasing scrutiny on broker commissions and sales behavior in Medicare Advantage, I believe we must transform the role of brokers more formally into ‘community health brokers’ (credit to Stanton Sasaki for this naming).

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should reboot broker commissions and residuals and tie them to health-oriented behaviors like:

-Helping people navigate the healthcare system, with an emphasis on connecting them with preventative medical care

-Advocating for people when they are having trouble accessing needed services and benefits

-Promoting healthy habits and behavior change that can obviate the need for expensive medical care

-Accessing community and other public resources that can improve health outcomes

I describe my thinking on the future of the Medicare Advantage broker industry in my latest Forbes column.

Changing the role of the ‘broker’ could be a massive expansion of the healthcare workforce and a force-multiplier for efforts to improve population health.”

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Source: Sachin H. Jain/LinkedIn

Sachin H. Jain is the President and CEO of SCAN Group and Health Plan and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He also serves as a Board Member at The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, an Academic Hospitalist (WOC) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and a Board Member at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).