If you’re in the healthcare insurance industry, you’ve no doubt already heard about the enrollment guideline changes being enacted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). However, if you somehow haven’t heard about what’s coming… welcome! You’re in the right place to find out everything you need to know. 

Mostly pertaining to enrollment call recording and disclaimer requirements, the new guidelines are scheduled for calendar year 2023. However, they actually go into effect October 1, 2022. 

Yep, that’s right around the corner. But don’t even fret! Your friends at FluentStream have you covered with all the details to know what’s coming – and all the communications features necessary to meet these new requirements! 

What are the New CMS Requirements

The CMS Final Rule 2023 was announced in May of 2022 and requires all Medicare and Medicaid sales/enrollment calls to be recorded and stored for at least 10 years. 

There are also a number of new requirements around disclaimers, which you can read the details of in our full breakdown of the CMS Final Rule Changes.

How FluentStream Helps You Meet the New Requirements

Making sure your agents can meet these new CMS requirements by October 1, 2022 (or soon after) comes down to two simple factors: technology and training. 

Luckily, FluentStream has all the call recording and storage technology you need on one easy-to-use platform. Even luckier, we also have plenty of tools to train your agents on the new requirements and automate their implementation. 

Automatic Call Recording

When activated for individual agent extensions, specific queues, or your whole account, automatic call recording does just what it says on the tin — starts a new recording at the start of every phone call. No button presses or Start/Stop commands required. All you have to do is talk normally, and the audio file will be saved for future review. 

This one feature knocks out a major chunk of the new CMS requirements, and once it's set up across your account, you never have to worry about it again. 

On-Demand Call Recording

By design, the new CMS requirements cast a wide net on what is considered a “marketing” call. But sometimes callers will decline to be recorded. Your agents will also undoubtedly take many calls that wouldn’t need to be recorded according to the new guidelines. 

You could record those calls anyway, but then you’d have exponentially more recordings to categorize and store. However, the danger in not recording them is that these calls could potentially take a sharp turn into “Chain of Enrollment” territory. 

That’s where on-demand call recording swoops in to save the day. With the press of a button, you can both meet CMS requirements and keep the conversation going naturally. Perhaps even more importantly, on-demand recording also allows your agents to immediately turn off your call recording software if a client declines to be recorded.

Call Recording Storage

The aspect of CMS Final Rule 2023 with the most long-term impact is definitely the requirement that insurance vendors store all call recordings for at least 10 years. 

Relying on internal servers and manual organization would quickly become an untenable nightmare. We highly recommend investing in FluentStream’s cloud storage for your call recordings. 

Cloud Storage is a digital storage space available to store call recordings on remote servers that can be accessed from any of your internet-connected devices. That means all your recordings will be managed, maintained, and backed up remotely for a low monthly rate, allowing you to continuously meet the new 10 year requirement without lifting a finger. 

With FluentStream, your sales and enrollment conversations are automatically saved forever. 

Agent Training 

FluentStream also helps your agents prepare for these new changes faster and with easier access to assistance. 

Yes, at the end of the day, the most important thing is putting in the time to learn new workflows and memorize new disclaimers. But features designed to help call-centric teams learn and improve on the fly certainly come in handy. 

For instance, we have multiple ways to pre-record the new coverage plans disclaimer, ensuring your clients are informed without forcing agents to constantly repeat themselves. 

When all (and I mean all) your call data is stored in the cloud, tracking the performance of your agents is as easy as looking at a dashboard on your computer. Ours is called Live Manager, and it gives you a customizable window into how your agents are performing both individually and as a team. 

At a glance, you can see how many calls your agents are taking, how long they spend on each call, how long it takes them to answer, and most importantly, how those numbers compare to the rest of your team. 

Plus, when you hire someone new, you can easily listen in on their client calls to gather feedback or hop onto the call itself to lend a hand. 

HIPAA Compliant Out of the Box

Due to the distributed nature of cloud-based technology and the shared responsibility of data security, safety is always one of our top priorities. 

FluentStream follows Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption best practices for all our Internet-transit traffic. Our online identities are all validated by an external trusted root certificate authority that provides validation not only of our security, but of our identity and the legitimacy of our business entity. 

Now, if you’re like me and that all sounded like a bunch of borderline sci-fi mushmouth, here’s the simple version. FluentStream supports all efforts to comply with HIPAA and will have everything set up properly before you make your first call. 

Have more questions about how the upcoming CMS requirements changes will affect your business? Want to learn more about how much FluentStream can improve your productivity while saving you money every month? Let us know at sales@fluentstream.com or by calling 303-GO-CLOUD and selecting Option 1.