Materials Creation
A True End-to-End (E2E) Communications Suite is Essential for Health Plans—Here’s Why…
As Health Plans know well—planning, building, maintaining, and fulfilling accurate mandated member and provider materials requires alignment of all departments and months of coordinating and managing internal and external dependencies and deliverables to meet AEP timelines. Dates like September 30th and October 15th are ingrained in memory, and summers become a head-down race to deliver…
Read MoreHow to Produce AEP Documents & Manage Plan Benefits with Compressed Timelines
The second post in our AEP Best Practices series focuses on the critical path of the Annual Enrollment Period—how to produce AEP documents efficiently & manage plan benefits effectively with compressed timelines. It’s important to understand the risks and challenges with compressed timelines for health plans with several Plan Benefit Packages (PBPs). Here’s a graphic…
Read MoreAEP Best Practices – How to Produce Compliant & Effective Member Communications
Planning for AEP (Annual Enrollment Period) As health plans prepare for AEP (Annual Enrollment Period), they face a multitude of challenges—ranging from compliance issues to mitigating risk related to timing, data, and documents. To help navigate these challenges, here are some key strategies and Best Practices for Compliant and Effective Member Communications we recently shared…
Read MoreHow Can a “Single-Source Solution” Help Manage the Lifecycle of Member Communications?
If you are tasked with the challenge of managing the lifecycle of Member Communications—you likely need an efficient “Single-Source Solution” to help. Managing multiple vendors for document development & creation (ANOCs, EOCs, SBs/SOBs/SBCs, Pre & Post Enrollment materials), translations, Section 508 remediation, directories & formularies, as well as the sourcing of member communications print &…
Read MoreAn Inside Look at Plan Benefit Package (PBP) Software
Health plans have a variety of uses for plan benefit information: CMS bid review and approval, Medicare Plan Finder, member materials (such as ANOCs, EOCs, and SBs), customer service, sales, appeals and grievances, claims, and more. However, this information is typically housed in multiple locations and managed independently with “no centralized source of truth”, making…
Read MoreWhat Do CMS’s Final Rule Updates Mean for Medicare Advantage Programs?
Every year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) updates its Final Rule document that codifies the regulations for Medicare and Medicaid programs. After analyzing the complete 272-page Final Rule document—here are important regulatory CY22 changes worth noting: Medicare Communications and Marketing Guidelines (MCMG) document: While CMS believes it would be duplicative to produce…
Read MoreCMS Skips Another Year on the MCMG
Health plans are wondering “where are my updated Medicare Communications and Marketing Guidelines (MCMG)?” For the second consecutive year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) stated that there will be no updated MCMG for CY2021. Instead, plans are instructed to use the existing MCMG and related memos from CY2020. How will changes be…
Read MoreShould Your Health Plan Consider Outsourcing Development of its Member Marketing Materials?
The annual creation of CMS required collateral materials such as Evidence of Coverage (EOC) and Annual Notice of Changes (ANOC) is a complicated process. Many health plans are not aware of how complex these documents can be and fail to dedicate the proper resources. There are several things a plan should consider when deciding whether…
Read More4 Ways to Help Maintain Version Control
Health plans struggle to keep track of the different iterations of documents as they build and produce CMS-required documents such as the Annual Notice of Change (ANOC), Evidence of Coverage (EOC), Summary of Benefits (SB) and other member and provider materials. The good news is, achieving version control is not impossible. In fact, with the…
Read More4 ways to reduce – or eliminate – errors in your ANOCs and EOCs
The accuracy of Annual Notice of Changes (ANOC) and Evidence of Coverage (EOC) documents is an important requirement for all health plans. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) takes errors in these documents very seriously and penalties are given to health plans that distribute documents with errors. CMS recently announced changes to the…
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