Category Outreach and enrolment

Become a CDO

What does it mean to be a Certified Application Counselor Designated Organization (CDO)?

Certified Application Counselor Designated Organizations (CDOs) are a vital component of the assister community. In the Federally-facilitated Marketplaces (FFMs), CDOs oversee certified application counselors (CACs) who are trained and able to help consumers seeking health insurance coverage options through an FFM. Organizations that wish to become CDOs designated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to serve in an FFM must submit an online application and enter into an agreement with CMS. 

Your organization can apply to become a CDO.

Why is this important to your organization?

If your organization is not listed with CMS as a CDO you cannot assist the community with Marketplace Applications.

This designation is even more important as our country is looking at the unwinding of the Public Health Emergency.  Indiana has over 2 million Hoosiers enrolled in Medicaid coverage with an estimated 500,000 Hoosiers who will no longer qualify for Medicaid and will need assistance in navigating the private insurance realm.  Many who possibly have never had to walk this path before.  Without this designation, your organization will not be able to assist these Hoosiers.

There are no fees associated with becoming a CDO and the training for your Certified Application Counselors (CAC) is at no charge as well.  But there is a process to this designation with timeline requirements, and that is now.

There are steps you must take to do this process and it is only open at certain times of the year.
Open Season
• CDO Renewal
• CAC “Go Dark”
• CAC Training


Open Season    
Open Season is the only time you can register to become a CDO and this process started on June 1 and runs through August 31, 2022.  Open Season only applies to those organizations that are not current CDOs.  Only organizations who complete the two steps below by August 31, 2022 and receive a CDO ID from CMS can certify staff or volunteers as Federally certified application counselors (CACs) to provide enrollment assistance services.

To apply to become CDO:

  1. Access and complete the CDO application at: https://mats.secure.force.com/CDOApplication/. CMS will review your application and send a determination email with your application status. Please allow up to 10 business days for this review.
  2. If CMS approves your application, you must access the CDO Organizational Maintenance Web Form (link provided in approval email) and submit a signed CMS-CDO agreement. CMS will then review your signed agreement and send a determination email. If CMS approves your agreement, you will receive a Welcome Packet email with a unique CDO ID. Please allow up to 5 business days for this review.

• For questions or updates, you can email [email protected].
Please include your organization’s name and address in the body of your email.

CDO Renewal
For full details of CDO Renewals, please visit this resource, also included in IPHCA Monthly for June

“Go Dark”
As CMS prepares for the upcoming open enrollment during the summer months, they take the current CAC training offline.  This is known as “Going Dark”.    Assisters will not be able to access the certification training for the current enrollment year (2022).  So if you have any assisters you need to take the training you will need to have them complete their training before Friday, July 15, 2022.  If you have new assisters you may be tempted to want to wait for the 2023 training, but remember if they are not certified for 2022 they will not be able to assist Hoosiers at all during 2022, which Hoosiers could have a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) up to December of 2022.

Certified Application Counselor Training (CAC)
This is the training that CACs must complete each year.  This is the training that is uploaded to the Marketplace Learning Management System (MLMS) each year after the “Go Dark” process.

CACs must renew this training once a year.

• For questions or updates, you can email [email protected]. or Jenny Walden
Please include your organization’s name and address in the body of your email.

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