Bring Your Own Crosswalk
Already have plan change data? Here's how to run the AEP Renewals 2027 campaign with your own crosswalk.
Got your own crosswalk from a carrier, an FMO, or a spreadsheet you've been building all month? You can still use the AEP Renewals 2027 campaign. It's a bit more involved than using ours, because the campaign was built to read our data in a specific way. This page walks through what it expects and how to fit your data to it.
Want a second set of eyes?
Your Forward Deployed Engineer can review your setup with you before you go live. Great voice AI comes from a lot of back and forth (test, tweak, test again), and having someone from our team in the loop speeds that up a ton, especially when your data looks different from ours.
What the campaign expects
Out of the box, the campaign needs three things from each member:
- A color (Red, Yellow, or Green) so the Pulse knows which path to send
them down. It reads this from three tags:
AEP 2027 plan changes - Red,- Yellow, and- Green. - A short summary of their main change in a custom field with the key
planChanges2027. The AI uses this to pick its opener. - The full details in a custom field with the key
planChanges2027Details. The AI uses this to answer questions.
If you match those, the campaign works as-is. If your data looks different, that's fine too, you'll just adjust the campaign to fit it. Both paths are below.
If the fields are empty, the AI doesn't break. It falls back to a general "it's that time of year, want to review your options?" call. You just lose the personal part, which is kind of the whole point.
Step 1: Create the campaign
Without our crosswalk you won't have the Add to campaign button, so create the campaign from the template library instead:
- Go to Campaigns, click Create Campaign, and choose Voice AI campaign.
- Under Medicare, pick AEP Renewals 2027 and create it.
It's created as a draft, and the three color tags get added to your account automatically. Nobody gets called until you turn it on.
Step 2: Set up your fields
The fastest route. Go to Settings > CRM Settings > Custom Fields and create two Text fields with these exact labels:
- Plan Changes 2027
- Plan Changes 2027 Details
careCycle builds each field's key from its label, so those labels give you
the keys the AI looks for: planChanges2027 and planChanges2027Details.
Double check the Key column after you save. See Custom
Fields.
Then write your summaries the way ours are written, because the AI picks its opener based on what the summary says:
| If the plan is... | Write something like | The AI says... |
|---|---|---|
| Ending, leaving their area, or splitting | "Your plan, X, will not be offered in 2027, so you'll need to choose a new plan." | Their plan won't be renewed and they need to pick a new one |
| Changing in a way that matters | "Starting January 1, 2027, the monthly premium for your plan, X, is going up from $0 to $38." | There are notable changes coming |
| Staying basically the same | "Your plan, X, is continuing in 2027 with no major changes to your premium, out-of-pocket limit, or deductibles." | Things look steady, any questions? |
| Unknown, or the field's empty | (anything else) | A general AEP check-in |
The key phrases are things like "will not be offered," "no longer offered," "choose a new plan" for ending plans, and "no major changes" for steady ones. See what gets written to your members for every version of our wording.
Put everything else (every cost and benefit change) in Plan Changes 2027 Details, in plain English.
Already have your data in a different shape? Maybe separate fields for the premium change, the new plan name, and a drug coverage note. Create whatever custom fields make sense for your data at Settings > CRM Settings > Custom Fields.
Then open the campaign's Employees tab and tell careCycle about them:
- what each field is called and what's in it,
- how the AI should decide which opener to use (for example, "if the Plan Status field says Terminated, use the plan-ending opener"),
- and when it should bring each field up on the call.
careCycle will propose changes to the script so it reads your fields instead of ours. Apply them, then test (Step 4). See Edit Your AI with Employees.
Whichever way you go, leave plan recommendations out of anything the AI reads. Naming other plans to a member is marketing, and that's a conversation for your licensed agents.
Step 3: Get your data in
Import your file like you normally would, and map your columns to your custom fields. Customers already in careCycle get updated, so you can import just the members you want to call.
Then tag everyone with their color. You can do this in bulk two ways:
- The import assistant. Upload your file and tell it which tag goes on which members (for example, "tag everyone where Color is Red with AEP 2027 plan changes - Red").
- The API. If you've got a developer, they can tag members in bulk. See the API reference.
Use the exact tag names above and the Pulse works without any changes.
Want to use your own tags, or keep the color in a custom field instead? That works too, you just need to update the Pulse to match. Open the Pulse tab, click the Routing step at the top, and change each branch's rule to your tag or field. See Routing on customer data and tags.
Anyone who doesn't match a color goes down the Default branch, which follows the Yellow path.
Got more (or different) groups?
Maybe you've got four tiers, or you split by carrier, or you want plan terminations on their own path. That's doable. The Routing step can have up to five branches, and each one needs its own path of calls and texts in the Pulse, plus the script needs to know what to say for it. This is a great one to walk through with your FDE.
Step 4: Test it before you turn it on
Test calls use your Test Customer record, so that's where your sample data goes.
- Open your Test Customer and fill in your plan change fields with a real example from your file.
- On the campaign's Overview tab, use Test this Campaign to talk to the AI in your browser, or have it call your phone. Make sure it picks the opener you'd expect. See Test Your Campaign.
- Swap in an example for each color and test again.
- To fine-tune the wording, run simulations and coach the AI in the Employees tab.
Expect a few rounds of this. That's normal, and it's where the campaign goes from fine to great.
Once everything sounds right, finish the regular setup (escalations, cadence, activate) from the main guide, starting at Review the script.