Need a Contact for Someone at Ritter

[GreenSky]

I tried to contact with Ritter for Aetna during last years AEP and after several failed attempts, I just went direct with Aetna.
I guess I'm a small fish.

At least that's the smell you give off.

Rick

 

[Newby]

I think they are just having growing pains. I wouldn't do business with a company that's hard to do business with either.

In their case I think they are run by good people but they may be growing too fast.

 

[Mark from WI]

I think they are just having growing pains. I wouldn't do business with a company that's hard to do business with either.

In their case I think they are run by good people but they may be growing too fast.

I have heard pretty much all good things about Ritter, myself. Real strong web stuff and quoting, especially.

 

[JustinSane]

I use Carrier Contracting Services. Most of the time (even after hours and even on weekends) someone responds immediately. I will agree with Newby, though....growing pains can temporarily make a company look less than par. Hopefully those guys hire a few folks...NO agent should have to wait to get sales support from their IMO.

 

[BeeSelective]

Unfortunately Ritter is the marketing agency for HealthNet/Pennsy Life. I thought Pennsy Life got out of the PDP business, but now they have HealthNet?

 

[eharriett]

Hey all, sorry I have not updated this thread in almost a week. On Wednesday afternoon, the day after I started this thread, I was rear-ended, badly. My car is completely totaled and I'm getting myself back together. Ironically, I was also the only one involved with a drivers license and insurance, so I was the only one who got to keep my freedom out of it. Obviously, business came to a screeching halt until today, when I could start returning calls. Still don't have a car, and since I go to clients, that's a serious problem I have to remedy immediately, like, tomorrow.

Anyway, just to update you, I got a PM from Craig Ritter on Thursday and a call from someone over there on Friday, which I was unable to return until today, although I did call him back on Friday night leaving an apologetic VM that I didn't get back to them. But I left a similar message for about a dozen clients that evening also.

Really wasn't intending to start a "bash Ritter" thread; as I said earlier, from what I'd heard, that is undeserving to him. But I did need to contact them. Thanks for all your responses and your PM's.

 

[ctg]

I didn't take it as a "bash Ritter" thread. From what I see they are on the up and up. Hope that issue gets resolved for you.

And best of luck with your latest challenge...hope everyone is OK.

 

[jeff88]

They don't like returning phone calls. I write business for them and they still don't return calls in a timely fashion. Their one saving grace is the website.

I'm not sure about this either. I just went to their website to begin contracting with them and the first 2 links I tried both gave me error messages. I emailed them telling them this. If they get back to me quickly and fix the errors, and I don't see a bunch of other errors on their site after, I will then move forward. Otherwise, I will assume they reached the peak of their business a couple years ago, when most of the threads about them were written.

 

[taterpeeler]

I'm sprised the Ritter dude ain't working his magic on this thread. That says more than anything....is the gig up?... Nice quote engine...all hat no cattle?

 

[craig_ritter]

I'm sprised the Ritter dude ain't working his magic on this thread. That says more than anything....is the gig up?... Nice quote engine...all hat no cattle?

"All hat, no cattle" is a bullet to the head coming from a Texan, so I'll take a crack at this. First of all, as an agent, I really don't need to know my FMO's problems. . .I just want results. So, I'm not looking to make excuses, even though this is probably going to sound like it, but here goes.

1. Penn Life/Health Net PDP - This was originally a fairly straight forward contracting and commission administration project which ended up a bit more complicated than I anticipated with multiple hierarchies, contracting changes and other issues which came up mid-stream. We had a bit of an information vacuum mid-way through. Since I upgraded my commission paying system in 2011, I'm confident that, in the end, this will be no problem for us to administer. This was a $1+ billion acquisition that involved thousands of agents that need re-contracted (with paper contracts), so it was bound to get a little messy. All of the agents I've re-contracted as a part of this who get re-certified for 2013 will be reimbursed for their AHIP as a "thank you" for their patience. I understand that some agents are justifiably frustrated with the transition, so I wanted to offer something to make things right as best I could.

2. Website errors. At the same time as #1, we migrated all our agent data from a system we had been using for 7 years to a new system we developed ourselves. The new system will allow us to provide vastly better web services for years to come, but this required us to re-write almost all of code running our website and map and migrate over 48,000 agent's contracting records to the new database (levels, agent numbers, appointed states, hierarchies, etc.) Currently, the errors with the website are not code related, but due to the fact that we've outgrown our shared SQL database space and need to move all our data to a dedicated SQL server. The errors happen when the SQL server times out and this often requires a restart of the server. There is no "fix" per se, the only solution is to move to a dedicated server. We've been working on this move this week and look to finish it this weekend. I don't expect these type of errors after this weekend.

3. Staffing - Seven years ago I had 5 employees and by the beginning of this AEP, I expect to have 60 people. We continue to add staff and I'm thinking we'll be alright this AEP, but it's challenging to grow that fast.

All in all, 2012 has been challenging. but I'm extremely excited about the future. I was hoping that all this would be invisible to the agents we work with (why I planned this for the Medicare "off season"), but it's caused some disruption. I'm confident we'll be in a better position to serve agents once we get through these upgrades. I do appreciate the positive comments and I also appreciate candid feedback.

Not sure if this helps explain our rough patch the past couple months. One thing that won't change is that I will always run an FMO that treats agents fairly and that is dedicated to helping agents conduct their business efficiently and profitably.