Last updated: September 12, 2026
This checklist covers the appointment around the form, before it starts and after it ends. The form itself comes from your carrier or your FMO, for reasons further down. Nothing here is legal advice.
What a Scope of Appointment is and when you need one
A Scope of Appointment records which Medicare product types a beneficiary agreed to discuss before a personal marketing appointment begins. It limits that appointment to the product types marked on it, it stays valid for 12 months, and it has to be retrievable afterward. Your carrier or FMO supplies the form.
The trigger is the personal marketing appointment: one person or a small group of relatives in the same home, held in person, by phone, or over video. A sales call with one beneficiary sits inside that, so this lands on your phone floor as much as on the agents driving out to kitchen tables.
The checklist
Fifteen checks across the three points where a Scope of Appointment comes apart. Anything the source column marks as practice rather than rule text is yours to set.
Before the appointment
| # | Check | What proves it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The SOA was agreed and recorded before the appointment started | A dated SOA record that predates the appointment | 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(i) |
| 2 | The SOA is in writing where the appointment happens in person | The written form in the beneficiary file | 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(i) |
| 3 | The product types the beneficiary agreed to discuss are marked | The marked product lines on the form | 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(A) |
| 4 | The SOA is inside its 12 month window from the signature date or the date of the beneficiary's initial request for information | The signature date on the form against the appointment date | 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(A) |
| 5 | The appointment date and the beneficiary's contact information are captured | Completed fields on the form | CMS marketing FAQs, May 2026. Secondary |
| 6 | The agent, the agency, and the carriers represented are identified | Completed fields on the form | Carrier or FMO form field. Practice |
During the appointment
| # | Check | What proves it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | The discussion stayed inside the product types marked on the form | The recording | 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(A) |
| 8 | A separate SOA was taken before any additional health related line of plan business came up | The second form, plus the boundary spoken on the call | 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(B) |
| 9 | Products outside health care, such as annuities, stayed out of the appointment | The recording | 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(C) |
| 10 | The TPMO disclaimer was delivered before any discussion of plan benefits | The timestamp of the disclaimer against the first benefit mention | 42 CFR 422.2267(e)(41)(ii) |
| 11 | A telephonic appointment was recorded in its entirety | The audio file, greeting to disconnect | 42 CFR 422.2274(g)(2)(ii) |
After the appointment
| # | Check | What proves it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | The SOA can be retrieved by beneficiary name and appointment date | A retrieval test somebody actually ran | Practice |
| 13 | The SOA is retained on the schedule your compliance policy sets | The retention policy and a sample pull from the oldest year | Agent facing guidance, commonly 10 years. Secondary |
| 14 | The marketing or sales recording is retained for six years, with audio for years one through three | The retention configuration on the recording platform | 42 CFR 422.2274(g)(2)(ii) |
| 15 | The recording and the SOA come back together as one record | Both artifacts under one beneficiary reference | Practice |
Rows 12 and 15 fail quietly, because nobody finds out until somebody asks for a file from two seasons ago. The wider compliance checklist covers the rules around this one, and CMS call recording requirements has the detail behind rows 11 and 14.
Where the form comes from
CMS does not publish a sample Scope of Appointment form. That surprises people, and it is why this page has no form to download. What exists is the regulation at 42 CFR 422.2264, which sets what the record has to establish, and the document you fill in comes from the carrier or FMO whose products you sell. A business reply card or an online request can serve as a valid scope where it names the product types to be discussed.
A stale copy of a regulatory form is worse than no copy, and an agency still working from a 2024 SOA PDF is holding a waiting period attestation that no longer describes the rule. Pull the current version each plan year.
What changed, and what a lot of guidance still says
Search for a Scope of Appointment form today and a good share of what comes back still describes a 48 hour wait between the signed SOA and the appointment. That requirement is gone.
The CY2027 final rule was published on April 6, 2026, and its marketing provisions apply to CY2027 activity beginning October 1, 2026. Reading 422.2264 on 2026-09-12, the waiting period language is not in the section. An agent can take the scope and move into the appointment the same day, as long as the SOA is complete before any plan specific discussion starts.
Calling that a simplification is the natural read, and it is about half right. The delay disappeared while the documentation requirement stayed put, so a two day gap visible in a CRM became a sequence inside one phone call. Proving a sequence after the fact is harder than proving a gap, which is how a page about a form ends up being a page about recordings.
When the beneficiary wants to discuss something not on the form
This happens on most of the calls worth having. Somebody agreed to talk about Medicare Advantage, then twenty minutes in they ask what a drug plan would cost.
The rule text is narrow. An additional health related line of plan business that was not identified beforehand needs a separate Scope of Appointment naming it, and the second scope carries its own 12 month validity from the signature date. Annuities and anything else outside health care stay out.
On a recording, that sounds like the agent naming the boundary out loud before the conversation moves. Whether the second form exists is invisible in the audio, which is why the after section runs to four lines.
Scoring the SOA against the recording
Half the checklist lives in the audio and half in a filing system, and the split matters more than it sounds.
| Check | Where the proof lives |
|---|---|
| Discussion stayed inside the marked product types | The recording |
| Disclaimer delivered before any benefit came up | The recording |
| Boundary named before a new line of business | The recording |
| The second SOA exists and is signed | Your file |
| Product types marked before the appointment | Your file |
| Retention and retrieval | Your file |
The audio rows score mechanically at volume. A required disclaimer is a fixed phrase with a timestamp on it, and the marked product types are a short list of terms to match against what was said. Once calls are transcribed and the speakers separated, a drift from Advantage into Part D has a time attached rather than an impression. The Medicare sales call scorecard turns these lines into weighted criteria, and QA for Medicare agencies covers the program around them.
Two limits worth saying plainly. Machine scoring holds up on rule based criteria like whether a phrase was said and when, and gets shakier on whether an agent sounded pushy, which Aircall and StackAI both note. The bigger one: nothing reads your filing cabinet, so a call that sounds clean against a scope nobody collected still scores clean.
Download the checklist
All fifteen lines download as a CSV with the source column intact, and no form sits in front of it. Carry that column into your own QA document, so whoever runs the audit next season can tell rule text from house policy.
What this page is not
A working checklist rather than legal or compliance advice. Your obligations come from the regulation, your plan contracts, and your counsel, and these rules moved twice in three years. Every line above was read against the CFR text on 2026-09-12, the only date this page can vouch for.
Where a Scope of Appointment actually breaks
The failure is almost never a missing form. It is drift: a signed scope in the file marked for one product type, clean and retrievable, next to a recording where nine minutes went to a drug plan nobody marked. A form cannot catch that, because it was accurate the moment it was signed and stays accurate in the drawer while the conversation wanders off. Only the recording knows what got discussed.
Say an agency runs 18 agents through AEP at 35 calls a day. That is 34,000 recordings and a few hundred human reviews, enough to tell you drift happens and not how often. Scoring six months of archived audio against the product types on the matching scopes puts a number on it, which is what the paid pilot does at a fixed pilot price.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Scope of Appointment form?
A Scope of Appointment records which Medicare product types a beneficiary agreed to discuss before a personal marketing appointment. It has to be recorded before that appointment begins, and in writing where the appointment happens in person, under 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(i).
Is the 48 hour Scope of Appointment rule still in effect?
That waiting period was removed by the CY2027 final rule published April 6, 2026, with the marketing provisions applying from October 1, 2026. Reading 422.2264 on 2026-09-12, no waiting period appears in the section, and guidance written before the change describes the old rule.
How long is a Scope of Appointment valid?
Twelve months from the beneficiary's signature date or the date of their initial request for information, under 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(A). A separate scope carries its own window from its own signature date.
What happens if the beneficiary wants to discuss a plan type not on the SOA?
An additional health related line of plan business needs a separate Scope of Appointment naming it before that line is marketed, under 42 CFR 422.2264(c)(3)(iii)(B). Products outside health care, annuities included, stay out entirely.
How long do you have to keep a Scope of Appointment?
Agent facing guidance commonly puts SOA retention at ten years, a secondary figure rather than something read out of the regulation here. Recording retention runs separately at six years for marketing and sales calls, audio required for the first three.
Sources
- Scope of Appointment requirements, 42 CFR 422.2264, read via Cornell LII on 2026-09-12. Timing at (c)(3)(i), validity at (c)(3)(iii)(A), the separate scope at (c)(3)(iii)(B), products outside health care at (c)(3)(iii)(C). Amendment shown as 91 FR 17583, April 6, 2026. Primary text mirror, confirm on eCFR.
- Absence of a 48 hour waiting period in that text. Verified by reading the section on 2026-09-12.
- Part D counterpart, 42 CFR 423.2264. Not read during drafting. Unverified.
- CY2027 final rule (CMS-4208-F3), published April 6, 2026, marketing provisions applying October 1, 2026. Secondary, gathered 2026-09-12. Confirm against the Federal Register.
- No CMS model SOA form, plus the required elements. Secondary, from a law firm summary of the CMS marketing FAQs dated 2026-05-25. Confirm against the FAQ.
- TPMO disclaimer timing, 42 CFR 422.2267(e)(41)(ii), and recording retention, 42 CFR 422.2274(g)(2)(ii). Both read via Cornell LII on 2026-09-09. Primary text mirror.
- Ten year SOA retention. Agent facing guidance, gathered 2026-09-12. Unverified against primary text.
- Aircall and StackAI, on automated scoring holding up better on rule based criteria. Third party, gathered 2026-09-08. Unverified.