Stop ACA enrollment bottlenecks with the Orchard EDE platform

Health insurance

Coverage options

Supplemental

Oct 2, 2026

What slows down the ACA broker enrollment process during Open Enrollment? Often, it isn't choosing a health plan.

For brokers, delays can happen before, during and after plan selection. A client gets stuck in identity proofing. Information is missing from an application. An eligibility issue needs attention. A data-matching issue requires follow-up. The broker has to move between different technology platforms to compare plans or finish the enrollment.

And brokers are doing a significant share of that work. During the 2026 Open Enrollment Period, roughly 76% of active HealthCare.gov plan selections involved an agent or broker, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

That makes seemingly small workflow problems worth paying attention to. Here are four places where the ACA enrollment process can get bogged down and how Orchard Health Marketplace, a CMS-approved EDE platform for brokers, is built to make each one easier to manage, especially during Open Enrollment.

Grow your business with Orchard.

Work faster and with more confidence.

Learn more

1\. ACA identity proofing can slow down enrollment

Identity proofing will be a bigger part of the ACA enrollment process this Open Enrollment, helping protect consumers from unauthorized enrollments and plan changes. For brokers, the challenge is making sure that extra step doesn't become another round of client follow-up. If verification happens outside the enrollment flow or clients aren't sure what to do next, an application can stall until the broker gets involved again.

Orchard incorporates identity proofing into its enrollment experience so clients can be verified as part of the workflow. Agents can send an account creation request directly to their client through the Orchard platform – even before the Open Enrollment period begins. Once a client creates their account and successfully completes the initial ID proofing process, they remain verified for future open enrollment periods on Orchard, eliminating the need to repeat this step in subsequent years. This streamlined process relies on dynamic information such as ZIP codes, IP addresses, and personal history to verify identity, rather than requiring the client to provide a photo ID.

Click on the video below to watch a demo of ID proofing via Orchard.

Source Not Supported

An unsupported error occurred. The server or network failed, or your browser does not support this format.

2\. Missing information creates work before and during the ACA application

A lot of time gets lost during Open Enrollment simply tracking down information. Maybe a client has changed doctors since last year, their prescriptions need updating or a household detail has changed. If you don't find that out until you're already working through the ACA application together, part of the appointment becomes an information-gathering session. Orchard developed a client intake form that brokers will be able to send before an appointment so clients can provide or update their information ahead of the conversation.

Additionally, Orchard also reduces repeat data entry later in the process. When a broker moves from an ACA application into dental or other ancillary coverage, basic client information carries over instead of requiring the broker to enter it all again and restart the client’s application from scratch.

The point isn't simply to make data entry faster. It's to avoid doing the same work twice.

3\. Platform hopping breaks up the shopping and enrollment experience

When plan comparison, ACA enrollment and supplemental quoting happen in different places, brokers can spend part of the client conversation moving between systems instead of talking about coverage. And the switching doesn't necessarily stop once the medical plan is selected. If dental, vision or other supplemental coverage requires another platform and another quote, you're asking the client to start again just when they thought they were finished.

Orchard keeps those pieces in one carrier-agnostic marketplace. Brokers can compare ACA options and move through the shopping and checkout experience without jumping between quoting exchanges. Medical, and select dental, vision and supplemental options can also be shopped in the same experience, with basic client information carrying forward when the broker moves from an ACA application into ancillary coverage.

For the client, that means less repetition. For the broker, it means the coverage conversation can keep moving instead of stopping every time the technology changes.

Click on the video below to watch a demo of quoting via Orchard.

4\. Data matching issues lead to more follow-up

Sometimes finishing the ACA application creates a new to-do list. If CMS can't verify information such as a client's income or immigration status, it may trigger a data matching issue (DMI). The client then has to provide documentation to clear it.

That's where things can get messy during Open Enrollment. Now there's a document to get from the client, a deadline to watch and another task to remember after the enrollment conversation has ended.

Orchard keeps that follow-up on the platform, in one place. Brokers can request documents from clients and store them in the Vault, where they're available when it's time to resolve a DMI. If the document you need is already there, you can select it and submit it with the application instead of going back to the client for another copy.

It's a relatively small workflow change, but an important one when you're managing a lot of applications at once. The less time spent chasing documents and figuring out where they landed, the easier it is to stay on top of outstanding ACA data matching issues during OE.

How brokers can make the ACA enrollment process more efficient

The best time to fix Open Enrollment bottlenecks is before Open Enrollment. Get client information up to date, know how you'll handle identity proofing and documents, and make sure the tools you rely on won't add unnecessary steps when volume picks up.

Orchard was built with these broker pain points in mind. From identity proofing and client intake to ACA enrollment, document management and supplemental quoting, the goal is to improve broker workflow efficiency so brokers can spend more of OE focused on their clients.