How are you going to handle the flood of phone calls/emails on 10/1?

[JoshinNC]

When the health insurance exchanges open we are inevitably going to get inundated with phone calls/emails asking for copies of returns, amount of "MAGI", estimates of 2014 income, and general questions about this new health care plan (because, as we know, our clients will put this off till the last minute).

I'm debating either charging a flat fee per client ahead of time to give them the necessary info or charging a by the hour. I am NOT going to spend 30 minutes to an hour per client during the month of October explaining all this crap without compensation.

What are your plans, if you have any?

[veritas]

I plan to

Postpone it a year like the gubmit.

[JoshinNC]

But the Individual Mandate hasn't been postponed

Postpone it a year like the gubmit.

I can't tell if you are being facetious or not, but the individual mandate is still effective for 1/1/14 with the exchanges opening on 10/1/13. Only the employer mandate/penalty "scheme" was delayed for a year.

This, I believe, will be part of the confusion we will see as clients have the opinion that it doesn't affect them and then they find out that it actually does.

[ATSMAN]

Healthcare.Gov

Checkout healthcare.Gov after 10/1 when the cost information will be available. Basically it is a very simple interactive site. The taxpayer plugs in the #of people on his 1040 and the income. You can take a guess it says.

Unless you choose to be a coach for them, your involvement may be just providing them a copy of their return and show them the line # they need to refer.

Your state should also have navigators paid by the state or Federal Gov. who are suppose to do the "hand holding" for folks who need that help. They will look at the 1040 copy and figure it out.

[ChEAr$]

I don't see any deluge, except for current weather conditions over this part of the country now, resulting from the Obamacare mandate.

If any client calls, I'll simply tell him how to locate one of those paid navigators (whose backgrounds will nto be subjet to checking before hiriing). It's not my problem.

[AZ-Tax]

Health Insurance Marketplace...

For those of you that are Health Ins licensed, its my understanding there is a website for the Ins Agent to train to be able to market the Exchange products.
To bad the Agent cannot earn CE's

https://marketplace.medicarelearningnetworklms.com/Default.aspx