OMAHA, NEBRASKA — WealthPLAN Partners, a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), has partnered with Medicare BackOffice® to help its financial advisors and their clients address the growing expense of health care in retirement.
The partnership allows WealthPLAN Partners’ more than 30 Financial Advisors nationwide to refer clients with Medicare questions to Medicare BackOffice, a team of insurance agents licensed, contracted and certified in all 50 states to provide Medicare advice and products. While Medicare BackOffice agents ultimately work directly with consumers, the company’s initial customers are financial advisors or other professionals who want to help their clients navigate Medicare while continuing to concentrate on their primary business.
“As the cost of health care continues to climb faster than the rate of inflation, financial advisors today must address this increased pressure on clients’ financial plans,” said Jeremy Armagost, CFP®, Wealth Advisor with WealthPLAN Partners in Kearney, Nebraska.
“Medicare BackOffice was the clear, easy-to-implement solution for our financial advisors,” Armagost said. “Offering clients health care cost education and management is not only the right thing for advisors to do, it’s also a smart way for advisors to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, because the consumer demand is swelling.”
Brian Hickey, Medicare BackOffice Vice President, said Medicare BackOffice was created to support Financial Advisors and other professionals who aren’t Medicare experts but want to help clients with important health care decisions that can impact their retirement success.
“Financial advisors in particular must mitigate the risk of health care costs, because without the proper planning, a single health care crisis can wipe out years of retirement savings,” Hickey said. “A sound retirement plan should involve ongoing management of health care costs, and for clients age 65 and older, that means reviewing their Medicare plans annually.”
Medicare BackOffice’s Licensed Insurance Agents can help an advisor’s clients with their initial enrollment into Medicare — which can help them avoid costly late-enrollment penalties that can last the rest of their lives.
“In this way, we help financial advisors avoid being blindsided by their clients’ Medicare questions or Medicare rules,” Hickey said.
On an ongoing basis, the Licensed Insurance Agents then conduct free annual reviews of Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement health insurance plans and Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plans, looking for dangerous price hikes in premiums and co-pays or drug formulary changes that could be costly.
Medicare BackOffice also keeps its partners up-to-date on important Medicare news and enrollment dates with its partner eNewsletter and provides client-facing materials to help partners educate clients and even market their health care cost-management services.
Learn how working with WealthPLAN Partners and Medicare BackOffice can help you provide your clients with a holistic approach to planning — register to attend a March 26 webinar on how this new partnership can enhance your value.
About Medicare BackOffice
Based in Omaha, Nebraska, Medicare BackOffice is a support service for broker-dealers, independent financial advisors, insurance agents and other professionals, helping their clients find the right Medicare health insurance plan. Professionals simply refer clients to Medicare BackOffice’s team of dedicated insurance agents, who are licensed, contracted and certified in all 50 states to provide Medicare advice and products from insurance carriers that are “A”-rated or better. By making clients’ search for Medicare answers easier and stress-free, Medicare BackOffice strengthens the referring professional’s relationship with clients. For more information, visit www.MedicareBackOffice.com. Medicare BackOffice is not connected with or endorsed by the United States government or the federal Medicare program. Insurance services provided by Insuractive, Inc.
About WealthPLAN Partners
WealthPLAN Partners is a Registered Investment Advisor headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, with branch offices in nine additional states. It was founded in 1989 in order to establish an unbiased financial planning and asset management firm more focused on client success than company sales.
WealthPLAN Partners strives to develop innovative solutions to address each client’s situation, focusing on ‘Return on Life’ as well as ‘Return on Investment.’ Our mission is to provide a comprehensive customized financial plan to help guide our clients through the challenges of each phase of their lives.
Our philosophy moves beyond simple ‘Buy and Hold’ and basic Asset Allocation, to Strategy Diversification. It looks closely at how investments are managed, how they seek to gain their returns, how they address risk exposures, and perhaps most importantly, what their correlations are with each other.
