The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has translated new exchange helper regulations into plain English.
CMS put the explanation of what officials there think the regulations mean for Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange helpers in a slidedeck aimed at navigators, non-navigator assistance personnel and certified application counselors.
Some of the slides apply only to helpers working with the public exchanges that CMS runs for its parent department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In a page on “robo-calls,” for example, officials warn helpers who work with exchanges wholly or partly run by HHS about use of automated communication systems. The helpers can use robo-calls to communicate with consumers if they already have relationships with those consumers, officials say. But a helper may not start any telephone “cold call” to a consumer “using an automatic dialing system or artificial or prerecorded voice,” officials say.