Spotting Secret Shoppers

[midwestbroker]

I wouldn't worry about walk-ins as others have mentioned.

Here is their surveillance report from CMS for 2014:

http://sms-university.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CY2014-AEP-Marketing-Surveillance-Summary-Report.pdf

The last page has a list of the common violations.

 

[insuranceconceptscindy]

You can spot them a mile away! Looking at the report linked, it seems like they spend more time shopping events than individual appointments. As some of the above said, they ask way more questions than the average client.

As long as you do everything as you were trained to do, there shouldn't be any problems. Send the scope in advance if you can and don't use absolutes, and you'll be fine. Also, check your plan materials when you get them for all of the required docs, like star ratings, which sometimes come separately.

Be thorough in your presentation and you will be just fine.

To add- no one actually walks in. I have had maybe 5 in 10 years. The only walk ins I get are the ones who forget which day their appointment was!

 

[EltonHCP]

I usually bust them at sales meetings by asking to make an appointment to take more time to answer the usual "best plan" questions. They'll immediately decline the offer and and I tell them to look at Medicare.gov to make their comparisons.

I had two secret shoppers shake their heads because they couldn't get me to say the stuff they wanted to ding me on. They laughed and walked away.

 

[healther]

I'm opening an office soon. I expect to have a lot of walk ins for MA this OE season.

What are some give aways the person is a secret shopper? What are questions I can ask to determine this?

I am in an older neighborhood on a road with 25,000 cars per day and I get probably 20 Medicare walk-ins per OE.

I haven't spotted any secret shoppers, but I don't look for them either. Just be compliant, which is extremely easy when people are walking through your door.

 

[somarco]