Enrollment Creative Thinking

Earlier today I received call from a woman speaking on behalf of her daughter. It turns out her daughter is 25 years old, has cerebral palsy and is a Medicare beneficiary. I immediately "warmed" to this woman due to the soft spot in my own heart for people touched by cerebral palsy. (My daughter, who is 8 years old, has cerebral palsy.)

I followed Medicare, and UnitedHealthcare policies and procedures while gathering information on both the mother, and her daughter. I wasn't able to speak with the daughter, at the time so I had her mother provide me everything I needed and we proceeded to discuss plan benefits.

We found, in her area, a PFFS (Private-Fee-For-Service) plan that would meet 'the daughter's' needs and determined we could complete enrollment today. I finished documenting her account (in our Customer contact/management system) and was just about to begin the enrollment when I realized, I haven't spoke with the daughter!

Just before the enrollment I put the mother on hold and asked for help. It turns out that 'the mother' does not have POA (Power of Attorney) and as such we would have been unable to enroll her daughter in this plan. (Normally I would give her my phone number, and extension and have her call be back. It's important to note that UHC does not operate "normally". At this point, I'm NOT ALLOWED to give out my phone number and extension on inbound sales calls. Which means if I don't close the sale, I lose it.)

My idea (at first) was to call the daughter, from my phone, and get her permission that way. It turns out that that could be perceived (by Medicare) as solicitation and was therefore declared a non-viable option. I didn't want to lose the sale, so I presented my idea! Our conversation unfolded as follows:

Me: "Ma'am, I'm going to need you to call your daughter, from your phone and have her give her permission for me to complete this enrollment with you, on her behalf."

Caller: "Okay. Wait, I can't make 3-way calls from my phone."

"Ha. I don't mean to sound 'pushy' but most phones 'these days' are able to 3-way call."

"Oh really? How do I do it?"

"Press the Talk/Send button, call your daughter and wait for the call to connect. That should put me on hold and allow you to conference all 3 of us by pushing the Talk/Send button again."

"Okay, so push Talk, call my daughter, and push Talk again and we'll be talking to you. Okay. Let me try this. Wait, what's your number in case this doesn't work."

...I proceeded to break a few rules and gave her my phone number and extension...

Caller: "Okay. Here goes nothing. Hold on and I'll get her."

You can probably guess how this ended - the 3-way call worked, I recorded the daughter's permission to speak to her mother, on her behalf and completed a telephonic enrollment; go me. :)

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Stephen Bruington