{"id":13436,"date":"2022-10-25T19:39:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T19:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/?p=13426"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:29:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T13:29:29","slug":"open-enrollment-aep-translations-successful-multilingual-campaign-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/open-enrollment-aep-translations-successful-multilingual-campaign-2\/","title":{"rendered":"AEP &#038; Open Enrollment Translations: Successful Multilingual Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Open Enrollment<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is an annual period when United States citizens can sign up for new health insurance, modify their current plan, or cancel it altogether. The Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) \u00a0usually takes place during the fall, and it is a date to be remembered by those interested in applying for changes to their health coverage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Language services, such as translation and interpreting, become critical during this Open Enrollment season due to the <a href=\"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/the-power-of-the-hispanic-market\/\">diverse demographics of the United States<\/a> and the percentage of low English proficiency (LEP) individuals. Healthcare organizations must provide these people with access to medical information in a language they can understand. This is especially true when they want to enroll in new coverage, change their plan, or find options that fit their medical preferences better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But before we dive into open enrollment translations, let&#8217;s start at the beginning: what do we mean by open enrollment in health coverage?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Understanding Open Enrollment in Healthcare<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we mentioned earlier, the Open Enrollment period is a once-a-year window of time in which each person can evaluate their health coverage options. It is done at the end of each year to generate coverage that is effective at the beginning of the following year for 12 months.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>What\u2019s the difference between annual enrollment and open enrollment?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>If you want to make changes to your health coverage, you should pay attention to this date. You may be wondering if there is a difference between \u201cannual enrollment period\u201d (AEP) and \u201copen enrollment period\u201d (OEP). If you have insurance through your employer, it is during the annual enrollment period that changes can be made to your insurance. AEP runs from the start of November through mid-December, but it might depend on your employer.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the open enrollment period applies to everyone who does not have employer-sponsored health insurance plans, people who are self-employed or those who have individual insurance. <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the case of work health insurance, the Open Enrollment season is also an opportunity for employees to cancel and modify their employer-provided health plans. Open Enrollment period usually runs from Nov. 1 through Jan. 15, although some states may have later deadlines.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>What types of health insurance are offered? <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Open Enrollment covers most health coverage, including:<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Medicare<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Job-based health insurance<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Individual health insurance<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (coverage each person purchases for themselves).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most medical coverage uses some form of Open Enrollment that limits future enrollment at a certain time of the year, but there are some exceptions:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Medicaid<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: state health insurance does not limit enrollments to an Open Enrollment period. Anyone who has access to Medicaid can enroll at any time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>CHIP<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: the government&#8217;s Children&#8217;s Health Insurance Program also does not limit enrollment to a specific time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Travel medical insurance<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: is not subject to Open Enrollment restrictions. Due to the short-term nature of travel insurance policies, they are not typically limited to a period of enrollment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Short-term health insurance<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Like travel insurance, short-term insurance is not regulated by the ACA and plans are available year-round in states that allow them.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Open Enrollment Translations<\/b><\/h2>\n<h3><b>Requirements for o<\/b><b>pen enrollment translations<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Federal civil rights laws, such as the ACA and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, require healthcare organizations to provide individuals with low-English proficiency access to the information they need in their own language. Additionally, there are four fundamental requirements that any health coverage agency registered for more than one year under the ACA must meet:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every insurer must offer <a href=\"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/the-relevance-of-healthcare-interpreters\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>written and oral translation services<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>based on the needs of the applicants. This service must be provided at no additional cost.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Agencies must provide slogans on important documents (physical or digital) <strong>notifying customers that translation services are available<\/strong>. These slogans must appear in the top 15 languages according to the state(s) in which the insurer operates.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each insurance provider must <strong>translate a certain amount of its web content<\/strong> into languages spoken by low-English-speaking communities that make up 10% of the population in each state.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All health plans must <strong>provide slogans on claims, resources, and summaries of coverage in any non-English language<\/strong> spoken by 10% or more of the population of any state they serve.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Annual enrollment period documentation<\/h3>\n<p>Annual Enrollment period documentation typically includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Evidence of Coverage<\/li>\n<li>Summary of Benefits<\/li>\n<li>Annual Notice of Change<\/li>\n<li>Formulary enrollment application<\/li>\n<li>Provider &amp; pharmacy directory<\/li>\n<li>Member communications<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Translation of open enrollment &amp; annual enrollment documents and marketing materials<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Health insurance companies are moving with current times and shifting from the bare minimum in terms of requirements to putting up a full-funnel enrollment strategy to ensure equity and inclusion and keep relevant among their competitors. There are a few steps that you can follow to deliver a successful AEP &amp; OEP multilingual campaign.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Prepare your materials. <\/strong>Make sure you review all your client-facing materials and channels. Consider compulsory documentation (such as evidence of coverage, summary of benefits, annual notice of change), marketing &amp; sales materials (such as marketing brochures, sales kits, welcome kits, guides), member communications, and don&#8217;t forget your digital assets (such as websites and social media).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Leverage your linguistic assets.<\/strong> At Win &amp; Winnow, we&#8217;ll make sure that a dedicated team assigned to you oversees the creation and regular maintenance of style guides, glossaries, and translation memories. These will help you <a href=\"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/translation-memory-lets-talk-about-it\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>optimize time and costs<\/strong><\/span><\/a> while keeping your brand identity.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Set a plan with your Language Services Provider (LSP). <\/strong>At Win &amp; Winnow, we say that our offer goes beyond services because we seek to provide comprehensive and customized solutions to your unique needs. Your AEP &amp; OEP multilingual campaign may include translation, document management, editing, and proofreading. It may also require desktop publishing services for market-ready materials. Ensuring compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act may lead you to consider other services, like transcription, the use of captions, subtitles, or voice-over. And don&#8217;t forget instances that exceed written materials; over-the-phone interpreting (OPI) can come in handy when providing assistance to members.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><b>The Importance of Language Services in Open Enrollment<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Language services offered during Open Enrollment and Annual Enrollment provide insurance agencies and health plan providers with ways to overcome language barriers in the United States. As the country becomes more culturally and linguistically diverse, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/access-to-health-information-what-is-health-literacy\/\">more and more people need to understand their health coverage situation in their own language<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u2014 language services like translation, interpreting, and transcription, among others, are a solution to this problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At <\/span><b>Win &amp; Winnow,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> we understand the linguistic needs for accessing medical information and have almost 20 years of experience in providing medical translation services. If you are an insurer or a health plan provider considering open enrollment translations, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winandwinnow.com\/site\/contact\/#contactform\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>contact us today for a free evaluation and quote.<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Open Enrollment is an annual period when United States citizens can sign up for new health insurance, modify their current plan, or cancel it altogether. The Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) \u00a0usually takes place during the fall, and it is a date to be remembered by those interested in applying for changes to their health coverage.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthcare-en","category-life-sciences-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18993,"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436\/revisions\/18993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winandwinnow.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}