Insurance agents have been Covered California’s foot soldiers, helping individuals and businesses navigate the chaos of the insurance exchange’s early days.
And now, because of some early kinks in the marketplace, those agents have become the walking wounded: Agents who helped small companies purchase coverage that began early last year through Covered California’s small-business marketplace still haven’t received their commissions.
Robert Hawkes, vice president of Polenzani Benefits and Insurance in Pasadena, signed up one client whose policies started around February of last year. He still hasn’t seen his commission check.
“We’ve been calling and still haven’t been paid,” he said.
The commissions are a percentage of their clients’ monthly premiums, and the checks need to be approved by the exchange and then cut by the state, explained Dede Kennedy-Simington, president of the Los Angeles Association of Health Underwriters. Kennedy-Simington is also vice president of Genesis Financial & Insurance Services, working out of its Pasadena office. She signed up three small businesses for coverage on the exchange, but she still hasn’t seen her commissions.
“Only a broker with a reasonable amount of existing business can float that,” she said. “A new agent who’s just starting and that’s the sole source of income can’t wait that long.”
Kennedy-Simington said the issue is that Covered California’s small-business marketplace had to switch to a new software platform last year, and commissions from plans that started before the switch seem to have fallen through the cracks.
Covered California spokesman Larry Hicks said calculating commissions on these plans is currently a more manual process than expected due to a shift in reporting systems that took place last summer.
Hicks also said the insurance exchange takes the delays seriously and that payments should start going out by the end of next month.
Still, Kennedy-Simington said agents have long memories and it might be tough to woo them back to this portion of the marketplace.
New Chief
When Alice Cheng took the reins of Beverly Hospital last year as interim chief executive, the nonprofit Montebello medical center had been losing an average of $3.5 million a year.
But Beverly has since swung to a profit and its board this month named Cheng chief executive.
Cheng, who previously served as Beverly’s chief operating officer and vice president of business development, has been working in L.A.’s health care industry for more than two decades but ended up in the sector totally by chance.
When she graduated from USC in 1991 with a master’s in public relations, the economy had taken a nosedive and it was hard to find a job.
“I interviewed with many major public relations firms,” said Taiwanese-born Cheng. “They expected you to speak Japanese, but I don’t. Only Japanese companies were hiring.”
Unfortunately for her, Cheng only spoke English, Thai, Taiwanese Mandarin and a little bit of French.
So when she got a call about a temporary gig working on a project for White Memorial Medical Center near downtown Los Angeles, Cheng jumped at the chance and stayed on as a marketing program manager for almost seven years.
When she took over as interim chief executive of Beverly, the hospital was grappling with whether to join a health system or stay independent for the sake of future development.
Bucking an industry trend toward consolidation, Beverly stayed independent, and got back in the black by keeping an eye on labor expenses and cutting supply costs.
Cheng credited the hospital’s management team and staff for the progress, and said it helped to really involve everyone in the turnaround process.
“Do you want to see this hospital continue to serve this community?” she recalled telling her team. “I understand if you feel like it’s not something you want to take on, but I think if we work together we could do it, and I just need to have that commitment.”
Checkups
L.A. Care Health Plan has announced that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors appointed Dr. Kimberly Uyeda to the organization’s board of governors. Uyeda is director of student medical services for Los Angeles Unified School District. … Monrovia biopharmaceutical company Xencor Inc. has appointed A. Bruce Montgomery to its board of directors. Montgomery, a doctor, serves as chief executive of Cardeas Pharma in Seattle. … Pasadena implantable-lens maker Calhoun Vision Inc. has named Rick A. Heinick chief executive. He was previously at Bausch + Lomb Inc.
Staff reporter Marni Usheroff can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 229.
