WAHU Symposium 2023
The 2023 Spring Symposium will be held on March 15th in Spokane and March 16th in Seattle. Come for a full day of industry specific knowledge, legal updates, innovations and trends that impact your business. This two-day conference brings leaders in the health insurance industry together with 100+ health insurance agents—designed to arm you with the latest new and useful strategies you can apply to your business today.
Day on the Hill 2023 Recap
This event was jointly presented by NAIFA Washington and the Washington Association of Health Underwriters (WAHU).
On Tuesday January 17th, 2023 WAHU/NAIFA hosted their joint Day-on-the-Hill lobby day in Olympia. We had great presentations, excellent discussion (WA Cares implementation was again the hot topic). The Double Tree has upgraded their conference rooms, amenities and food/beverage, nice surprise! The rain held off which made going to-and-from meetings more enjoyable as well. Day-on-the-Hill is a premier event for WAHU, we hope to see you there next year. Save-the-date, day after MLK day!
To recap, on the health side it is (hopefully) shaping up to be a “lighter” legislative session with not many bills yet put forth that would have drastic impact on our industry. There are a few priorities for health plans regarding bills that would have a compounding effect on increasing overall premium costs; including removal of prior authorization, prescription drug rebates (various), provisions to mitigate Pharmacy Benefit Managers (would lead to increased premium outcomes). One bill that WAHU is supporting would have a positive impact on healthcare premiums (SB 5393), which if passed would make hospital contracting easier/more flexible for health plans.
Here are two bills that we advocated for while in our meetings up on the Capitol campus, including WAHU/NAIFA leadership meeting with the majority and minority leaders of the House.
HB 1266 – This bill is being pushed by the OIC which would codify how they communicate with Producers when they need information. They have adopted their business practice to update some language, to first communicate via email and if no response follow with a certified letter requesting the information. This bill is aimed at helping make sure a Producer isn’t subjected to OIC disciplinary action simply because they the two parties were unable to connect. WAHU is in support.
HB 1061 (SB 5026) – grow and diversify the profession by eliminating pre-licensing education requirements for licensed insurance producers. Simply put, producers still are required to pass the applicable exams, but not required to sit for 20 hours of education per line of business. Learning could be done at own pace through alternative means. NAIFA supports this bill. WAHU is generally in favor, however, there was some testimony from another producer organization in opposition. We are watching closely to see how it develops and have not yet officially signed in our PRO stance. Stay tuned.
Bills we are watching closely:
SB 5169 – concerning health care plans administered by HCA that are available to Medicare eligible retirees
HB 1357 – modernizing the prior authorization process
SB 8202 – amending the constitution to address reproductive freedom