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• Include a tracking mechanism (e.g., a confirmation number) indicating that the plan received the electronic enrollment request. • Be retained, securely stored and readily reproducible for the period required in § 70.8. The plans record of the enrollment request must exist in a format that can be retrieved and accessible for later reference by each individual enrollee and/or CMS.

40.1.3 – Medicare Online Enrollment Center

Apart from the plan-sponsored electronic enrollment mechanism, CMS offers the online enrollment center (OEC) through 1) the Medicare.gov website, and 2) the 1-800-MEDICARE Call Center for enrollment into Medicare Advantage plans (except for MSA) and Medicare Prescription drug plans. The date and time “stamped” by the Medicare OEC will serve as the application date for purposes of determining the election period, enrollment effective date, and compliance with enrollment processing time frames. Plans should check for enrollment requests regularly.

The Medicare.gov OEC uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time and is four hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time and five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time) as the system time to generate the timestamp of when an enrollment was received. For requests made via the OEC, the application date to be used for processing the enrollment request is the time and date that is 11 hours earlier than the time and date CMS “stamps” on the enrollment request at the time the individual completed the OEC process. This is true regardless of when the plan ultimately retrieves or downloads the request.

Example: An individual completes an enrollment request and submits it via the OEC at 9:00 p.m. EST on December 7. The OEC will “stamp” this request as having been completed on December 8 at 2:00 a.m., which is the Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) equivalent time and date. The plan will use December 7, 3:00 p.m., as the application date for the purpose of addressing CMS enrollment policy requirements (e.g., application date, determination of election period, etc.).

40.1.4 – Enrollment via Telephone

Generally, plans may only accept requests for enrollment: • Through an incoming (in-bound) telephone call to a plan representative or agent. • During communications initiated by the organization when, during the course of outreach to provide information about their Medicare plan offerings to individuals with whom they have an existing business relationship, the individual expresses a desire to enroll in one of the organization’s plans.

An existing business relationship includes an individual who leaves a message wishing for a call back, fills out a business reply card, or other way in which an individual might initiate the relationship with the organization. Other CMS marketing rules and requirements may apply, please see 42 CFR §§ 422 and 423, Subpart V.