Mar 25, 2025

For carriers and agencies that sell Medicare Advantage, Supplement, or Part D plans, Medicare open enrollment season is always right around the corner. If you’re a life insurance carrier, a Medicare agency, or MGA/MGU and you’re trying to come to terms with the amount of work you need to do before, during, and after your Medicare open enrollment season, then have no fear. We’re here to walk you through some best practices to ensure the season runs smoothly for you, your producers, and your customers. When is Medicare open enrollment? Consumers have a window from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7 to enroll in Original Medicare and new Medicare supplement plans – also known as Medsup or Medigap – as well as Part D plans. And for Medicare Advantage enrollees, Jan. 1 to March 31 is the Advantage open enrollment season. Why is Medicare open enrollment such a big deal? Medicare open enrollment season is the opportunity for Medicare beneficiaries to join the Medicare Advantage plan, supplement plan, or Part D plan best suited to their needs. Or, for current Medicare Advantage enrollees, the Advantage open enrollment period is when they may switch between Advantage plans. If you have any questions about the intricacies of Medicare enrollment periods, check out our intro to Medicare piece , which touches on the who, what, when, and why of Medicare. Historically, 6.2 million Medicare beneficiaries take advantage of Medicare open enrollment season . Plus, efforts are increasing to drive awareness of the importance of open enrollment season and the opportunity to switch between plans. Chances are, the number of beneficiaries taking advantage of this enrollment period will only increase as Advantage (and its seasonal changes) increases in popularity. Even Medicare supplement plans, which historically have been a once-in-a-lifetime selection, are facing more churn than ever as states have increasingly mandated that consumers be able to swap between plans with similar or lesser benefits. Increased turnover and potential churn means Medicare agencies better be prepared to handle their business. Best practices for Medicare carriers, agencies, and MGAs/MGUs to execute a profitable open enrollment Millions of senior and disabled Americans are looking for support when switching between Medicare plans. And that simply isn’t something carriers, agencies, or MGAs/MGUs can ignore. When done right, open enrollment season is the opportunity for these companies to prove they’re a well-oiled machine, gain clout with producers, and help Medicare beneficiaries live their very best lives. But when done wrong, open enrollment season can be messy, stressful, and expensive. Buckle up and let’s look at how to make your next open enrollment season more profitable than ever before: No. 1: Accurately assess your distribution needs Maybe you’re heavy on producers in Nebraska. Maybe you need to focus your recruiting in Georgia. The reality is, demographics shift . That means no two Medicare open enrollment seasons will be the same, and you have to prepare to meet the market where it’s at in any given year. That means assessing where your producers have the appropriate appointments and licenses to do business, and matching that to regions where you anticipate the most opportunities. This may also mean committing part of your licensed workforce to retaining consumers for Advantage plans or supplement plans in states that allow supplement switching without underwriting. For agencies that take a seasonal approach to this by quickly scaling up and down their producer forces to make sales goals, mapping these opportunities will drive producer recruiting. AgentSync’s distribution channel management software dashboards can give you an at-a-glance visibility into the ready-to-sell status of your downstream producers. Get a full view of your workforce, filtering by appointments, licenses, and lines of authority. No. 2: Plan how to ramp up onboarding before Medicare open enrollment Whether you need to staff a call center or whether you’re hitting the pavement every day for Medicare, nearly all Medicare-adjacent organizations need to onboard new producers and distribution partners ahead of or during open enrollment season. Yet, dialing up your internal staff to manage all of your downstream distributors is impractical. By employing a plan that includes a distribution channel management solution, you can manage onboarding at scale. Don’t shackle your staff to a producer-operations ratio that requires you to constantly ramp up internal staff. Using the right software gives your team the ability to dial up your producer force and right-size distribution channels. Bulk actions can help you achieve your goals for acquiring the right licenses and appointments for open enrollment, all without the drama. With AgentSync, bulk actions help you manage your agents at scale, applying for licenses or appointments for thousands of producers in multiple states at one time. Built-in state rules keep you from applying for unnecessary or duplicative licenses, saving you in fees and staff doublework. No. 3: Retain and recruit talented producers with an intuitive experience Medicare open enrollment is annual. It happens every single year. Yet, since so many producers’ relationships with agencies and carriers are limited to just a single season, it can feel like you’re starting from scratch every year. By building a positive experience for producers from their first Medicare open enrollment season, carriers, agencies, and MGAs/MGUs can save time and money on recruiting efforts by fostering company loyalty and encouraging producers to come back year over year. For new producers, offering a quick and streamlined onboarding process means giving them as narrow a ready-to-sell waiting period as possible. For many agencies and carriers, speed and accuracy are the best differentiators in this period. Particularly if you’re onboarding people who are new to the industry, you can’t rely on their institutional knowledge to carry them through. But a hands-on white-glove onboarding service is impossible at scale. So the name of the game is delivering your producers a superior experience by putting them in the driver’s seat with intuitive self-service tools. AgentSync’s Manage product gives your producers a branded-to-you portal where they can upload their own documents, get messaging from your team, and see where in the process they are. Manage’s automatic messaging and receipt functions cut down on repetitive manual entry and the paperchase No. 4: Make a plan to offboard producers after Medicare open enrollment season Many Medicare-focused producers operate in something of a temporary role. Medicare carriers, agencies, and MGAs/MGUs need the support of these producers to get through open enrollment season but may not want to manage them through the largely unproductive remainder of the year. So, they’ll be onboarded shortly before Medicare open enrollment and offboarded shortly after. Recruiting these new producers and managing the onboarding and offboarding process will inevitably result in additional workload for existing staff. By planning for this influx of new producers, and establishing both a recruiting strategy and a system for what onboarding and offboarding might look like, companies can set the framework for a successful open enrollment season. AgentSync’s bulk actions make terminations a low lift for your team. From notifying the necessary states to preparing emailed termination notices for your agents, you can right-size your distribution force after Medicare open enrollment season, de-risking your business and saving you money in unnecessary renewals for producers who aren’t actively selling your products. How the right DCM software can make or break your Medicare open enrollment Medicare open enrollment season can be hectic, and human errors further complicate the cycle of onboarding and offboarding that many Medicare agencies undergo. Yet, maintaining visibility into your downstream distribution channels and complying with regulatory requirements are in the “need to have” column. Fortunately, carriers, agencies, and MGAs/MGUs can avoid these slip-ups by using distribution channel management (DCM) software. DCM software helps save time and prevent human error in producer onboarding and offboarding. Are you ready for the next Medicare and Medicare Advantage open enrollment season? AgentSync’s Manage product is the leading DCM software, giving you the edge during Medicare open enrollment by giving your staff the ability to: Flag gaps in producer data during the onboarding process. This allows companies to correct licensure or appointment mistakes before a producer starts selling, shortening the ready-to-sell process and saving money and time. Leverage portals that give your producers direct access for both accountability and visibility into the process, ending the hours your staff spends chasing paperwork and answering questions. Reduce paperwork (digital and otherwise) by streamlining the onboarding and offboarding processes, making your process less time-intensive and easier for inexperienced staffers and producers to plug into. Use automation to create a termination date that triggers the offboarding process without a slew of sticky note reminders, giving you the ability to manage a distribution channel at scale without growing internal headcount. Source your data via APIs that give you always-up-to-date visibility for all your downstream Medicare agents so you can make intelligent, data-driven decisions about your distribution growth. Retain records and licensing information for auditing and market conduct exams. That way, staff won’t need to retroactively sort through documentation to pull key data when it’s time to submit to an exam. Complete actions for your distribution channels in bulk, applying for multiple licenses or appointments in multiple states for multiple producers, all with one single submission. AgentSync will make your next open enrollment season less chaotic and more profitable. If you’re ready to streamline your distribution channels for growth, get a demo of Manage today . About AgentSync AgentSync provides distribution channel management (DCM) solutions that connect the insurance ecosystem. By automating producer onboarding workflows and integrating real-time data across systems, AgentSync enables insurers to scale and optimize their distribution networks while remaining compliant. Our configurable, intuitive platform simplifies the producer ready-to-sell process, supported by API connectivity for seamless data exchange across systems. AgentSync recognizes compliance as the ultimate enabler for optimized distribution, unlocking new revenue opportunity and agility to adapt in a rapidly evolving industry. Founded in 2018 by Niji Sabharwal and Jenn Knight, and headquartered in Denver, CO, AgentSync has been recognized as one of Denver’s Best Places to Work, a Forbes Magazine Cloud 100 Rising Star, an Insurtech Insights Future 50 winner, and was ranked 65th in Forbes’ America’s Best Startup Employers 2023. To learn more, visit www.agentsync.io . Share this