As the Annual Election Period (AEP) 2022 comes to a close, Medicare Supplement Providers are finally exhaling, having made it through the busiest and riskiest time of year. Their sales reps have given hundreds of presentations, fielded thousands of questions, and answered tens of thousands of inbound calls.
And through it all, TrendSource has been there, on the front lines with our clients, helping them mitigate the risk associated with doing business in Medicare spaces. These risks emerge from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which closely monitors and actively mystery shops sales reps during AEP, ensuring their interactions with potential customers remain compliant with their strict regulations.
TrendSource has long been the premiere provider of CMS Compliance Audits for Medicare Supplement Providers during AEP. By mystery shopping sales reps in ways that mimic CMS evaluations, TrendSource helps Supplement Providers prepare for prime time when CMS evaluators come knocking.
TrendSource CMS Audits allow companies to make small scale corrective action when their reps potentially violate CMS guidelines, avoiding the costly penalties that come with being caught by CMS.
This is why, during AEP, TrendSource was ran over 2,250 CMS Compliance Phone Call Audits and somewhere between 100 and 200 CMS event audits per week.
And yet, despite the exhaustive and extensive efforts of a CMS Compliance program during AEP, many Medicare Supplement Providers find that an AEP-targeted program is simply not enough.
Think about it: preparing sales reps and their managers for the hardest time of year should be a year-round effort, not one that only occurs during this period of peak volume. A year-round CMS Compliance program ensures that the structures are in place to quickly and efficiently institute corrective action.
Managing CMS risk is not something that can be accomplished during AEP alone. And it doesn’t have to be.
TrendSource provides both year-round and AEP-only CMS Compliance Audits. For particularly risk-averse companies, this is not an either-or choice.