AEP Week One: The Execution Checklist.

Our pre-AEP checklist was about readiness — certifications, carrier contracts, the book audit. All of that had a deadline of October 14. This is the other half: what the rules actually permit and require now that the window is open, for the three weeks when most of your year gets decided. Every rule below is cited to the section that contains it, because the most common compliance mistake in October is not breaking a rule. It is following a version of a rule that has been superseded.

AEP runs October 15 through December 7, under 42 CFR § 422.62(a)(2)(iii). That is 54 days, and it is the only enrollment window most of your book will have.

Are You a TPMO? Yes — and It Changes Four Things

If you are a compensated independent agent, you are a third-party marketing organization under CMS's definition. This is the single most common misconception in the field, and everything else in this post follows from it.

The definition at 42 CFR § 422.2260 is explicit. A TPMO means "organizations and individuals, including independent agents and brokers, who are compensated to perform lead generation, marketing, sales, and enrollment related functions as a part of the chain of enrollment." Not just call centers. Not just lead vendors. You.

Agents routinely read "third-party marketing organization" as a description of somebody upstream — the entity that sold them the lead — and conclude the TPMO rules are somebody else's compliance problem. They are not. Four requirements attach to you directly: the disclaimer, the recording rule, the lead-generation disclosures, and the restriction on sharing beneficiary data. Each is below.

What Can You Do Between October 1 and October 15?

Market next year's plans, but not enroll anyone in them. Those are two different permissions with two different dates, and conflating them is the week-one error that generates complaints.

On marketing: 42 CFR § 422.2263(a) provides that organizations "may begin marketing prospective plan year offerings on October 1 of each year for the following contract year," and may market the current and prospective year simultaneously "provided materials clearly indicate what year is being discussed." So the 2027 plan conversation is permitted from October 1 — as long as your client can tell which plan year you are describing.

On enrolling: the annual coordinated election period does not open until October 15. An election for the 2027 plan year made before that date is not a valid AEP election. The practical rule for the first half of October is that you may educate, compare and schedule, and you may not take the application.

That gap is also where the disclaimer and Scope of Appointment work belongs. Appointments booked and scoped in the first two weeks of October are appointments you can execute on October 15 instead of spending October 15 booking them.

Do You Have to Record Your Medicare Sales Calls?

Yes, and the retention period is longer than most agents assume. 42 CFR § 422.2274(g)(2)(ii) requires that "all marketing and sales calls, including the audio portion of calls conducted via web-based technology, must be recorded and retained in their entirety for a minimum period of 6 years."

Three details inside that sentence do real work:

• "In their entirety." Not the enrollment portion. Not from the point the application starts. The call.
• Web-based calls count. The audio portion of a video appointment is a recorded call under this rule.
• Six years, with a format rule inside it. The regulation specifies that "for the first 3 years of the retention period, records must be maintained in audio format," and that for years four through six they may be kept as audio or as "complete and accurate transcript recordings."

If your recording setup is a phone app whose storage rolls over, you do not have a compliant retention plan — you have a recording habit. The gap between those two becomes visible only when a complaint arrives, which is typically long after the audio is gone. Worth fixing this week rather than discovering in year three.

The TPMO Disclaimer, Word for Word

This is standardized content under 42 CFR § 422.2267(e)(41), which means the wording is not yours to improve. There are two versions, and which one you use depends on whether you sell for every MA organization in the service area.

If you do not offer every plan in the area, the disclaimer is: "We do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent [insert number of organizations] organizations which offer [insert number of plans] products in your area. Please contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE to get information on all of your options."

If you do sell for all MA organizations in the service area, it is: "Currently we represent [insert number of organizations] organizations which offer [insert number of plans] products in your area. You can always contact Medicare.gov or 1-800-MEDICARE for help with plan choices."

The requirement applies to any TPMO selling on behalf of more than one MA organization, and the regulation is specific about delivery. It must be verbally conveyed during sales calls prior to the discussion of any benefits — not at the end, not after the plan comparison. It must also be conveyed electronically in email, online chat or other electronic communication, prominently displayed on TPMO websites, and included in marketing materials you develop, use or distribute, including print and television.

The two bracketed numbers are specific to your appointments in that service area, and they change as your contracts change. An agent who adds carriers mid-season and keeps reciting last month's counts is reciting an inaccurate disclaimer. Check the figures you are using against your current appointments today, and again if you add a contract.

Scope of Appointment: What the Current Rule Actually Says

Two requirements, one timing rule, and one widely repeated condition that is not in the current regulation.

Under 42 CFR § 422.2274(b)(3), agents must "secure and document a Scope of Appointment prior to a personal marketing appointment." 42 CFR § 422.2264(c)(3)(i) adds the form requirement: the agent "must agree upon and record the Scope of Appointment with the beneficiary(ies)," and "the Scope of Appointment must be in writing for in-person personal marketing appointments."

• It must exist before the appointment. A scope agreed at the kitchen table, as the appointment begins, is not prior to the appointment.
• In writing for in-person appointments. The written form requirement is specific to in-person.
• It is valid for 12 months following the beneficiary's signature date or the date of their initial request for information, per § 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(A).
• New lines of business need a new scope. Under § 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(B), marketing health-related lines not identified before the appointment requires a separate Scope of Appointment identifying them, itself valid 12 months.
• Telephonic and walk-in appointments are included. § 422.2274(c)(9)(ii) requires plans to confirm that agents "appropriately complete Scope of Appointment records for all personal marketing appointments (including telephonic and walk-in)."

Now the part worth being careful about. Many agents still describe a mandatory waiting period — commonly stated as 48 hours — between the signed scope and the appointment. No such waiting period appears in the current text of § 422.2264 or § 422.2274. The current requirement is that the scope be agreed and recorded beforehand, with no minimum interval specified. We are telling you what the regulation says today, not what it has said at other times, and the section carries an amendment as recent as April 2026.

That is not permission to be casual. Carriers can and do impose contractual standards stricter than the regulation, and a carrier that requires a waiting period can hold you to it regardless of what CMS requires. Confirm the standard your specific carriers apply through your FMO before you rely on the regulatory floor.

What You May Not Do

The prohibitions that generate the most complaints, each with its citation. None of these are judgment calls.

• No meals. § 422.2263(b)(3) prohibits providing meals to potential enrollees "regardless of value." Gifts are limited to nominal value, must be offered without regard to whether the beneficiary enrolls, and may never be cash or a monetary rebate, under § 422.2263(b)(2).
• No cold calls, texts, voicemails or robocalls. § 422.2264(a)(2)(iv) covers unsolicited telephone solicitation and names the edge cases explicitly: calls based on referrals, calls to beneficiaries who attended a sales event unless they gave express permission, and calls to prospective enrollees to confirm receipt of mailed information. Returning a call or calling someone who completed a business reply card is not unsolicited.
• No door-to-door, and no working the lobby. § 422.2264(a)(2)(i) prohibits unsolicited door-to-door solicitation, including leaving materials — except that information may be left where an appointment was pre-scheduled and the beneficiary is not home. § 422.2264(a)(2)(ii) separately prohibits approaching enrollees "in common areas such as parking lots, hallways, and lobbies."
• No social media direct messages. § 422.2264(a)(2)(iii).
• No cross-selling non-health products. § 422.2263(b)(4) prohibits marketing non-health-care-related products during any MA sales activity or presentation, and § 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(C) names annuities specifically for personal marketing appointments.
• No required sign-in sheets at marketing events. § 422.2264(c)(2)(iii)(A) prohibits requiring sign-in sheets or requiring attendees to provide contact information as a prerequisite for attending an event. The same paragraph bars health screenings or surveys used to target a subset of attendees — what CMS calls cherry-picking.
• Referral payments are capped. § 422.2274(f) limits payment for a referral to $100 for an MA or MA-PD plan and $25 for a PDP.

One more that catches agents who buy or trade leads: under § 422.2274(g)(4), beneficiary data a TPMO collects for marketing or enrollment may be shared with another TPMO only with prior express written consent, obtained through a clear and conspicuous disclosure that lists each entity receiving the data and lets the beneficiary consent or decline per entity. A generic consent checkbox does not satisfy that.

And if you hold educational events: § 422.2264(c)(1) bars marketing specific plans or benefits at them, and § 422.2264(c)(1)(iii) bars distributing or accepting applications. You may make Scope of Appointment forms available and answer beneficiary-initiated questions. If a marketing event follows an educational one, attendees must be told the educational portion is ending and given a real opportunity to leave first.

Who Gets the First Call?

Not your best prospect. Your most disrupted client.

The priority order that protects the most revenue is the one that starts with clients whose plan is changing under them, because those are the clients with a deadline and a reason to talk to whoever calls first. If you worked the ANOC letters in September, that list already exists. If a client's plan is non-renewing, they have a special election period running December 8 through the last day of February — but their AEP option closes December 7, and AEP usually gives them better inventory than a February scramble.

There is also a compensation reason to sequence it this way, and it is worth understanding before you move anyone. Under § 422.2274(d)(5)(ii)(A), a plan change within the first three months of enrollment triggers rapid-disenrollment compensation recovery, and § 422.2274(d)(5)(iv)(A) specifies that when it applies, "the entire compensation must be recovered." Not pro-rated. All of it.

The regulation then carves out the exceptions that matter in October. Recovery does not apply when a beneficiary enrolled effective October 1, November 1 or December 1 and then uses AEP to change for a January 1 effective date — § 422.2274(d)(5)(iii)(A). It also does not apply where the change follows a plan termination, non-renewal or CMS-imposed sanction, under § 422.2274(d)(5)(iii)(B)(4). So the disrupted client you move during AEP is the safe move. The satisfied client you move in February for no documented reason is the one that can cost you the entire commission.

Then the tier most agents skip: the client whose plan did not change and who needs nothing. A three-minute call confirming that is the cheapest retention available all season, and it is the call your competitor is not making. Renewal compensation is the quiet half of this business — CMS publishes caps rather than guarantees, and we keep the current figures on our compensation breakdown — but it only compounds on a book that stays.

A Shape for October 15 Through October 31

Not a prescription, since books differ. A defensible default:

• October 15–17 — the disrupted list. Non-renewals and service-area reductions first, then material benefit or formulary changes from the ANOCs. These clients have the clearest reason to act and the highest risk of acting with someone else.
• October 18–24 — the rest of the changed book. Premium and cost-sharing moves, network changes, drug-tier changes. Confirm the plan still fits before assuming it does.
• October 25–31 — new business and the no-change calls. Referrals and inbound you parked, interleaved with the short confirmation calls to clients whose coverage is steady.

Starting later than the 15th? Keep the order and compress the clock — the sequence is what protects the book, not the calendar dates.

Two process notes that pay for themselves. Log which conversation each client has had, in one CRM field, on the call — in late November you will not remember which of three hundred clients you have already spoken to, and calling twice reads as disorganized while calling not at all reads as absent. And keep the disclaimer and scope mechanics in front of you rather than in memory: the disclaimer before any benefit discussion, the scope before any personal appointment, the recording running for the whole call.

If you are checking a rule at speed between appointments, AskRamona — our AI assistant, free to agents and open in English and Spanish — is built for that kind of lookup. Confirm anything that will reach a client against the regulation itself, the plan's documents or your FMO's compliance desk. That rule holds for every tool, ours included.

The Bottom Line

Three things are worth carrying into October 15. You are a TPMO, which means the disclaimer, the six-year recording rule and the data-sharing restriction are yours and not your upline's. The binding rulebook is 42 CFR Part 422 Subpart V as it reads now — amended in April 2026 — rather than a 2022 guidance PDF that CMS itself describes as lacking the force of law. And the first call belongs to the client whose plan changed, both because they have a deadline and because the regulation's own chargeback exceptions make that the move you can defend.

The rest is execution. Fifty-four days, one window, and a book that mostly renews itself if the people in it hear from you before they hear from somebody else.