What a Scope of Appointment is
A Scope of Appointment is a CMS compliance artifact that records a Medicare beneficiary's agreement to discuss specific plan types with an agent before an individual sales appointment. It exists to protect beneficiaries from being steered into products they never asked about.
The rule is strict on timing: the SOA must be obtained before the appointment, not during or after, and it applies to phone appointments as well as in-person ones. Agents keep the signed SOA on file, and carriers and CMS can request it, so a missing or late SOA can void the sale and trigger compliance action.
This is where high-volume Medicare outreach lives or dies. Rivvi captures the SOA up front, in the same call or web conversation, before the plan discussion begins, so brokers and FMOs can work aged leads and T65 lists at scale while staying inside the CMS rule, with opt-out honored on every attempt.
Scope of Appointment, answered
Before the individual marketing appointment begins. CMS requires the SOA to be documented ahead of any plan-specific sales discussion, and the rule applies to phone appointments too. Capturing it after the conversation has started does not satisfy the requirement and can invalidate the enrollment.
Yes. CMS treats a telephonic sales appointment the same as an in-person one, so the Scope of Appointment must be captured before the plan conversation on the phone. An agent can record the beneficiary's agreement verbally or collect an electronic SOA (eSOA) before discussing specific plans.
An eSOA is an electronic Scope of Appointment: the same CMS-required agreement collected digitally, by text link, web form, or a recorded verbal confirmation, rather than on paper. It carries the same timing rule, so it must be completed before the sales appointment and retained for audit.
See it work on your own patients, free
Rivvi's free 7-day trial includes 5 seats, 10,000 conversation credits, a signed HIPAA BAA, and a branded number in your area code. A card starts the trial; cancel anytime before it ends.
- 7-day free trial
- HIPAA BAA included
- Cancel anytime