Florida Health News

Any, Any, Any plan gets Medicare's okay to resume sales

By Carol Gentry
2/7/2008 Florida Health News

ST. PETERSBURG – The Medicare Advantage insurance plan with the funny name – Any, Any, Any – stampeding back onto the playing field after a year of suspension by state and federal regulators.

Universal Health Care Insurance Co., sponsor of the plan, received word Thursday morning from Washington that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had lifted the sanction against marketing and enrollment of new members. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation gave Universal the green light in late December and notified CMS in early January.

Any, Any, Any will begin its second year way behind competitors, with only seven weeks to go before Medicare selling season ends March 31. But Dr. Akshay Desai, the chairman and president of Universal Health Care Group and its subsidiaries, said his team has 700 sales agents already trained and equipped with CMS-approved marketing materials. They could have ads announcing sales seminars in newspapers as early as Monday, he said.

“Obviously, we’re a little late right now, but we’ve got word of mouth working for us,” Desai said. “I think we’ll get a good response from seniors. Once they see we’re back, they’ll want to come back and we’ll welcome them back.”

Any, Any, Any – a name that Desai created to convey coverage for treatment from any doctor, anywhere, anytime – currently has about 40,000 members in the eight states in which its sponsoring company has a license, he said. Counting plans operated by sister companies, including Medicare Masterpiece HMO, Universal altogether has about 65,000 members, Desai said.

Universal plans had a combined membership of about 110,000 a year ago, he said, when the company froze enrollment for Any, Any, Any, under pressure from state and federal regulators.

Florida insurance officials said the plan’s rapid enrollment had outrun its financial reserves, and for several months the state tried to take it over while Universal sought court protection. But in December, Desai met the state’s requirement that he show $116 million in reserves and reinsurance.

On Jan. 3, Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation notified CMS that it had no objection to Universal beginning enrollment for Any, Any, Any again.
CMS, which had continued to pay Universal millions of dollars each month to care for its Medicare members throughout the year of suspension, conducted its own audit in mid-January to make sure that the company was complying with marketing requirements. 

The agency had received numerous complaints in the early months of 2007 from beneficiaries who said they had been misled about the nature of the plan, an unfamiliar type to most doctors and patients called private fee-for-service. Many also complained that they could not get help from the overwhelmed headquarters staff or from the call center, which was then in India.

In the past year, Desai said, he has made numerous changes, including contracting with a company to run a large call center in Orlando, adding customer-service staff at headquarters and speeding up claims payment, which is handled in India. He also posted the payment rate for doctors on the Internet, to reduce confusion.

In her letter to Desai, which was dated Wednesday, CMS official Abby Block said that the audit three weeks ago found no problems that would need correcting. “Universal may resume marketing and enrollment activities as of the date of this letter,” she wrote.

This year, Desai said, Any, Any, Any will have gold, silver and platinum plans with varying benefits and payments. The feature that likely caused the big stampede of enrollees a year ago – a refund of the Part B premium, which effectively provided a raise of up to $1,100 in members’ Social Security checks – is back, but the refunds are lower this year and vary depending on the county.

And if there is a stampede, Desai said, he’s not worried. “We’re ready for whatever comes,” he said. “We’re a much stronger company today.”

As of midnight last night, the company Web site, www.univhc.com, still had no information listed about the availability of Any, Any, Any. The company's toll-free number is 1-866-690-4842.

Carol Gentry, editor of Florida Health News, is based in St. Petersburg. She can be reached at Carol.Gentry@FloridaHealthNews.org.