Medicare Sales Agent Onboarding

Role and Project Overview

Role: Senior Instructional Designer, Project Lead
Company: GoHealth
Audience: New hire Medicare sales agents
Timeline: 2023-2025

GoLearn is GoHealth's new hire training program for Medicare sales agents, the foundation that prepares agents to sell compliantly and confidently before they ever take a live call.

As the Project Lead and Senior Instructional Designer on this program, I led the redesign and ongoing maintenance of GoLearn for three years, driven by annual changes to Medicare regulations, evolving business needs, and an ongoing effort to incorporate new tools and methods that made training more efficient without sacrificing quality.

The initial redesign reduced the program from nine weeks to six, cutting onboarding time by three weeks while maintaining the depth agents needed to perform in a highly regulated, high-stakes environment. This work was recognized with an ATD Excellence in Practice Award, honoring the program's impact on learning and business performance.

Strategy

The six-week curriculum was designed to build knowledge in a way that felt clear, practical, and aligned to how agents actually work. It followed the company's sales process as its framework, with each module building on the one before it, starting with core Medicare foundations and progressing into more complex topics as agents moved closer to taking live calls.

The program incorporated a range of interactive and applied learning elements to support skill development:

Call listening and calibration: Reinforced consistency and quality by grounding agents in real examples of how conversations should sound.
Discussions: Deepened understanding and encouraged agents to process and apply what they were learning.
Small and large group activities: Created opportunities to practice skills and learn alongside peers.
Facilitator demonstrations: Showed agents how processes and conversations should look in action.
System simulations: Provided hands-on practice in the tools agents would use daily.
On-the-floor training: Supported the transition from the training environment to live member conversations.
Daily and weekly knowledge checks: Reinforced learning and tracked progress throughout the program.

Spotlight: Realistic Practice for Agent Readiness

To support real-world readiness, I designed layered practice experiences that strengthened skill development and on-the-job application over time.

Member Profiles

I created 30 realistic member profiles to anchor scenario-based practice throughout the program, used across both AI simulations and traditional roleplay. Each profile represented a Medicare member with distinct needs and circumstances, including: demographics, medical diagnoses, financial needs, Medicare and Medicaid status, providers, and prescriptions.

Together, they created a consistent, authentic foundation for practice that increased the realism of training.

Second Nature AI Simulations

Built directly from the member profiles, the simulations were structured around each step of the sales conversation, with each one building on the one before it.

As agents progressed, I partnered with subject matter experts to identify the areas where agents frequently struggled and designed targeted simulations to provide focused practice where it was needed most. By the end of the program, agents completed a full mock call that brought every skill together in a single, realistic simulation.

This work contributed to a 33% reduction in training time, making learning more efficient and skill-centered without sacrificing quality.

Traditional Roleplay

I incorporated the same member profiles into facilitator-led roleplays, giving learners additional opportunities to apply skills in live, guided conversations.

This approach reinforced learning, supported coaching in the moment, and prepared agents for a broader range of member interactions.

Challenges

Ongoing Medicare and internal process changes
Medicare plan details, enrollment guidance, and policy-related information changed frequently throughout the year, requiring continuous content review to ensure agents always had accurate, current information. This meant regularly auditing existing content, identifying what needed to be updated, and turning revisions around quickly enough to keep pace with changes as they happened. Internal processes evolved as well, including updates to workflows, expectations, and operational guidance that affected how agents were trained to navigate their role. Because these changes sometimes occurred while training was already in progress, facilitators needed timely communication and clear direction to adjust delivery without disrupting live sessions.
Cross-functional coordination:
Different teams were not always aligned on priorities, processes, or expectations, which required ongoing communication, decision-making, and coordination to maintain a cohesive learner experience.
Balancing Readiness with Time-to-Floor:
Agents needed enough foundation, practice, and support to succeed in a nuanced role, while the business also aimed to shorten ramp time. This required prioritization of content and a strong focus on practice that prepared learners for live member conversations, without adding unnecessary length to the program.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

This project involved close coordination across multiple teams, each contributing expertise that shaped the content, timing, and delivery of each training cycle.

Strategy: Partnered on training priorities, business goals, and updates needed to support each training cycle.
Facilitation: Aligned on delivery needs, facilitator readiness, and training experience considerations.
Compliance: Coordinated on licensing requirements and timing that affected learner readiness and onboarding.
Compensation: Incorporated compensation updates and clarified information agents needed to understand during training.
Quality Assurance: Used QA insights to identify performance gaps, reinforce key expectations, and align training to quality standards.
Sales: Partnered on sales process expectations and performance needs.
Agent Success Coaches: Gathered feedback on learner needs, common coaching themes, and areas where agents needed additional practice or support.
Subject Matter Experts: Collaborated to identify Medicare changes and keep content accurate, current, and compliant.
Instructional Design Team: Coordinated work across the team, assigned deliverables, and maintained consistency across the project.

Technology

Articulate Rise: ILT course materials, participant guides, and supporting eLearning courses.
Second Nature AI: Scenario-based sales practice.
Vyond: Animated videos used for concept explanations, scenario-based learning, and ongoing agent reference in the internal knowledge system.
Camtasia: Tool demos and supplemental support content that reinforced systems, processes, and on-the-job tasks.
WellSaid Labs: Voiceover in training videos and mock calls to create realistic audio scenarios and targeted learner situations.
Articulate Storyline: Mock simulations of internal and external systems.

Impact

2023 ATD Excellence in Practice Award GoLearn was recognized by the Association for Talent Development for its impact on learning and business performance.
Prior to 2022, there was no formalized onboarding or training program in place for agents. The implementation of GoLearn reduced new hire attrition during onboarding from 30% to 10%, resulting in significant cost savings per hire.
Reduced onboarding from nine weeks to six by incorporating AI simulations and redesigning the learning experience, the program cut onboarding time by three weeks, a 33% reduction in training time, while increasing sales performance by 20%.

Explore this Project

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