The Medicare Advantage Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) gives Medicare beneficiaries the opportunity to evaluate their current health insurance coverage and make any changes they deem necessary. Sometimes known as the Medicare Fall Open Enrollment Period or the Annual Election Period, AEP runs from October 15th – December 7th each year, in accordance with guidelines set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Meeting CMS deadlines for AEP documents is a high-stress period. There are specific documents that have to be ready by Oct 15th – and that have to comply with all regulatory requirements. Achieving this can be hard enough in your native tongue, but in the multicultural environment of the US, much of this work must also include translations into other languages.
the importance of accurate translation
With the U.S. diversifying even faster than anticipated, the need to communicate effectively in different languages is growing exponentially.
This is especially true in the US and CQ fluency understands the nuances of your particular target. For example, plans in South Florida consider the Cuban dialect for Spanish when translating. Whereas if it is a plan in New York City, other dialects like those from the Dominican Republic have to be considered. We go beyond literal language translation utilizing our in-depth understanding of the target culture and language to accurately convey your message down to the slightest nuance.
In the health insurance sector, organizations must ensure accurate translations that conform to federal, state, and local laws, rules, and regulations. Translation accuracy helps to preserve client health and safety, in addition to giving protection to your organization against lawsuits, regulatory compliance breaches, and damage to brand reputation.
An accurate and reliable translation service empowers your organization to stay in compliance with CMS and meet CMS deadlines, while automating the process of AEP document preparation, reducing risk, and providing a clear communications solution within the limits of your budget.
how we ensure accuracy
CQ fluency is committed to quality and accuracy throughout each step of the translation process. Here are the factors that enable us to monitor and deliver this across our AEP translations:
– our commitment to social responsibility and respect toward our translator community, motivating the best linguists to work for us
– our ISO 9001 and ISO 17100 certified translation process is the foundation for our workflows, and our customized innovations address your specific pain-points
– a consistent track record of achieving a 99% customer satisfaction rate, quarter over quarter
– a dedicated Language Quality Assurance (LQA) team ensures linguistic integrity with full support throughout the localization lifecycle: analyzing customer specifications, glossary creation, terminology management, style guide preparation, query database management, escalation management, linguistic and downstream project scoring and fostering continuous improvement
– a robust audit program encompassing an annual internal audit, annual registrar audits, bimonthly and ad-hoc SIPOC audits, quarterly KPI and quality objective review and analysis of customer satisfaction and feedback
– a unique query management solution that provides a strong communication framework to supports linguists in improving output by flagging issues with translatability, escalating queries to client’s reviewers and more
the TEP process
TEP provides consecutive steps that form the main stages of the document translation process. This process provides a rigorous framework guiding the translation of text from the source language to other languages while preserving the meaning and feeling of the original text.
translation
The first stage in TEP is transferring the linguistic entities from one source language into one or more target language(s). To do this effectively, you need more than simple translation. You need to fine-tune your message carefully to fit the cultural nuances of your target audience.
A number of digital tools are available to professional translators. For instance, translation software can flag the inconsistent translation of terms, and untranslated passages. Using tools like this can help linguists catch formatting errors that the human eye might miss.
editing
Editing smooths the translated text and polishes sentences to give a clear structure that provides consistent information and maintains the focus of the original document.
The best editors will go through the text to ensure that the words chosen in the translation give the same message and nuances as those used in the original language. They will also consider who the translation is intended for (e.g., professionals or lay people?), local idioms of the intended reader, and the format in which the final text will appear.
proofreading
At the proofreading stage, translators check for grammar, spelling, syntax, punctuation, and consistency. Proofreading specialists may also review the typography and layout of a document.
Proofreading is vital, as misspelling and typographical errors can give a negative impression to the reader, or even change the meaning of a passage entirely. In a compliance-intensive exercise like AEP, such errors can prove very costly to the patient — and to the organization preparing the documents.
why you can trust CQ fluency
At CQ fluency we work with over 2,500 certified in-country linguists who have deep knowledge of their native cultures, and many of whom are subject matter experts in various medical fields, to ensure your documents are translated accurately and effectively to avoid any gap in communication. Additionally, our translation services team can deliver your project in almost any file type and format, including DTP files for digital and print documents.