As AEP 2022 rapidly approaches, Medicare Supplement Providers are preparing for a wave of phone calls soon to be coming their way. As they build out their expanded sales force and work to meet their annual goals, providers must always be cognizant of Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services regulations.
CMS regulates Medicare and Medicaid Supplement Providers, ensuring they do not engage in predatory behavior. Since most AEP calls come from senior citizens, this mandate is all the more important as elders are often the victims of such malfeasance.
One way that providers often prepare for AEP is through CMS Compliance Audits, which alert companies to potential compliance violations before CMS discovers them and institutes punitive action.
Today, we are going to look at CMS Translator Call Compliance Audits, an important weapon in providers’ arsenal guarding against potential violations.
What are CMS Translator Call Compliance Audits?
CMS Translator Call Audits evaluate Medicare Supplement providers’ call center translator services.
CMS requires supplement providers to offer accurate and timely information in multiple languages to ensure equal access to health care and insurance information.
Since it would be cost prohibitive for most companies to maintain a call center sales force that could field calls in so many languages, instead they typically have a stable of translators who click to phone calls when their services are needed. This allows for more efficiency in operations, but it also means that the sales rep does not speak directly to the caller, instead going through a translator intermediary.
Consequently, information can literally be lost in translation.
Looking for What is Lost in Translation
In CMS translator call compliance audits, a bi-lingual Field Agent poses as a Medicare-eligible consumer curious about a provider’s supplemental plan and requiring translator services. The Field Agent is then able to hear the call center rep’s English-language answers as well as the translator’s translation of those answers, and is thus in a position to evaluate their consistency.
Are things getting lost in translation or is the information communicated both accurately and consistently? This is the primary question CMS Translator Call Audits seeks to answer.
CMS translator calls further evaluate the broader overall experience of consumers who require translation. For example, how long does somebody who requires Vietnamese translation services have to wait before a translator becomes available? Were materials available in the requested language?
TrendSource CMS Translator Call Audits
To help our Medicare Supplement Provider clients, TrendSource currently offers CMS Translator Call Audits in the following languages:
- Cantonese
- French
- Mandarin
- Spanish
- Tagalog
- Vietnamese
TrendSource additionally offers TTY Call Center Audits.
As AEP approaches, Medicare Supplement providers must prepare for CMS’s watchful eye. With CMS Translator calls, TrendSource can help.
