Scope of Appointment (SOA) Management
A new ruling by CMS has now stipulated that beneficiaries must sign a Scope of Appointment (SOA) at least 48 hours prior to a meeting with a Medicare and Medicaid agent.
This change has been put in place in order to provide both you and the beneficiary time to research options and make fully informed decisions.
Our new Scope of Appointment Management system makes it easy to stay within compliance of this new rule, track SOA submissions, and send reminders to appointment attendees within seconds.
IN THIS GUIDE:
How Our SOA (Scope of Appointment) System Works
Automatic SOA Collection When Booking Appointments
Our system makes it easy to stay within compliance when setting up meetings with beneficiaries.
Once selecting a time to meet with you, leads will automatically be redirected to a Scope of Appointment page. From here, they can identify the products that they'd like to discuss with you and electronically sign the SOA.
The completed SOA will be stored within your Great AEP Account.
If the lead exits out of the appointment workflow without completing the SOA, we will automatically enroll them in a text/email reminder sequence to complete the SOA.
Additionally, if any new attendees are added to the meeting, they will automatically be send an SOA to complete.
The 48-Hour Scheduling Rule
From the scheduling page, we automatically do not allow visitors to schedule a time to meet with you less than 48 hours in advance. This is designed to give you and your leads ample time to sign the SOA and stay in compliance prior to your meeting.
You can turn off this setting by clicking the Campaigns button at the top of your screen.
A list of all your campaigns will appear. Locate the campaign that you'd like to edit the 48-hour scheduling for, then click the View button to the right of the campaign row.
From the campaign details page, click the Edit button at the top right of the page.
You'll be redirected to the Edit Campaign page. Scroll down the bottom of the page, and uncheck the "Enforce 48-Hour Schedule Rule" box.
You can also edit additional settings on this page, such as allowing leads to book same-day appointments, or removing the ability to collect electronic SOAs.
Click the blue Update Campaign button to save your changes.
View a Contact's SOA
To view the completed SOA of a contact, head to the Your Upcoming Appointments page, where you'll see a list of all of your scheduled appointments. Find the name of the person you'd like to view the SOA for, then click the name on the far left of the appointment row.
This will open the appointment details page.
From here, you can view the executed SOA in two ways
- Click the Download SOA button at the top of the screen to download the SOA to your device
- Click the blue text under SOA ON FILE?. This will redirect you to another page where you can view the SOA.
View SOA Status
You can easily view the SOA status of your upcoming meetings, making sure you can send reminders to leads as needed.
To view the status of all your upcoming appointments, start by clicking Appointments in the top navigation bar of your Great AEP account.
Under Your Upcoming Appointments, you'll see a list of all of your scheduled appointments. You'll see a row with the SOA status of all upcoming appointments.
The rows with a yellow icon marked "No SOA on file" indicate attendees that are still required to submit their SOA.
Send SOA Reminders
Occasionally, a lead will choose to exit out of the appointment booking process before signing the SOA. In this case, you'll need to send them reminders to complete the form prior to your meeting.
There are two ways you are able to send an SOA reminder through Great AEP: Automatically, and Manually.
Automated Reminders
If our system lists a contact as having an incomplete SOA, we will send them automated reminders to complete it.
To view these upcoming reminders, start by clicking the Campaigns button at the top of your screen.
A list of all your campaigns will appear. Locate the campaign that you'd like to view SOA reminders for, then click the View button to the right of the campaign row.
From the campaign details page, click the Reminders tab.
From here, you can view all of the automated SOA email and text reminders that will be sent to leads if they have not yet completed an SOA. You can view, edit, or delete these reminders as needed.
Manual Reminders
You can also manually send out SOA reminders to your leads.
Under Your Upcoming Appointments, you'll see a list of all of your scheduled appointments. Find the name of the person you'd like to send the SOA to, and click the primary name to the left of the appointment row.
This will open the appointment detail page. Under SOA ON FILE? Click the Email or Text button to manually send a reminder to your contact.
Log Offline SOAs
If a lead fills out a SOA through the Great AEP system, we will automatically record the SOA as complete. However, there may be some situations where a lead fills out the SOA in person or through other offline channels.
In that case, you can manually log the SOA completion in the Great AEP system.
To do this, click the Record a Scope button on the appointment detail page.
You will be redirected to the Edit Appointment page.
Ensure the "I have already collected scope of appointment" button is checked, then input the date when the SOA was signed.
Then, click the blue Update Appointment button.
Your lead's SOA will now show as recorded within the Great AEP system.