- Short-term medical (STM) is an off-exchange product, so the leads sell 12 months a year. There is no open enrollment gate the way there is for ACA plans.
- The 2024 federal rule that would have capped these plans at a few months is not being enforced. As of August 7, 2025, the Departments said they will not prioritize enforcement pending new rulemaking.
- That year-round supply is also the trap. STM is a low-persistency product, so a cheap lead that lapses in six weeks can cost you more per kept member than a pricier one.
- Match the lead type to how you sell, and grade every buy on verified, retained members. Buy STM as the counter-cyclical complement to your seasonal ACA book.
Short-term medical leads are the one under-65 health lead you can buy in July and still write business. They are an off-exchange product, so they do not wait for open enrollment the way ACA leads do. For an agent, that means a book that stays busy after the marketplace goes quiet in January.
That is the opportunity. The catch is that year-round supply also means year-round junk supply, and STM sits in the most quality-sensitive corner of the health market. This guide is for the agent or agency buying STM leads, not the consumer shopping for a plan. The whole game is buying that year-round supply without buying the year-round junk, and grading every lead on the unit that actually matters.
Quick answers:
- Are short-term medical leads available year-round?
- How do short-term medical leads differ from ACA leads?
- How much do short-term medical leads cost?
- Is short-term medical still limited to a few months?
- Should agents buy short-term medical or ACA leads?
Short-term medical is an off-exchange product, not an ACA lead
Short-term medical is sold outside the ACA Marketplace. It is one of the private U65 off-exchange products, alongside fixed indemnity and hospital indemnity. The buyer is a self-pay adult under 65 who wants coverage now, not a subsidy-eligible shopper on the exchange.
The product itself is different in ways that decide how you sell. STM plans are medically underwritten, so carriers can decline applicants or exclude conditions. They do not count as minimum essential coverage, and they are not required to cover pre-existing conditions, as UnitedHealthcare and eHealth both spell out. Premiums run lower than an unsubsidized ACA plan, which is most of the appeal for the person filling out the form.
None of that lives in an ACA lead. If you treat an STM inquiry like a marketplace lead, you will pitch a subsidized bronze plan to someone who wanted a low monthly payment this month. The intent is real, but it points at a different product.
The one lead you can buy in July: STM has no open enrollment
ACA leads live and die by a calendar. You can only enroll someone in a marketplace plan during open enrollment or a special enrollment period. So the demand spikes in the fall and thins out for most of the year. Short-term medical carries no such gate. It is available all year, which is exactly why people reach for it after they miss open enrollment, as healthinsurance.org notes.
For a lead buyer, that changes the shape of the year. Your ACA volume falls off a cliff after the January deadline. STM demand does not. Someone leaves a W-2 job in March, another loses coverage in June, a 63-year-old bridges to Medicare in August. Every one of those is an off-exchange moment with no enrollment window attached.
The practical read: STM is not a fourth-quarter play. It is the lead lane that keeps your dialers busy in the months your ACA book cannot.
Why the year-round window is wide open right now
There is a regulatory wrinkle every STM lead buyer should understand, because it is moving in the seller’s favor. In April 2024, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury issued a final rule on short-term, limited-duration insurance. It capped these plans at a three-month initial term and a four-month maximum including renewals. That rule would have shrunk the product back toward a true stopgap.
It is not being enforced. On August 7, 2025, the same Departments issued a statement on the 2024 duration limits. They do not intend to prioritize enforcement, pending new notice-and-comment rulemaking to reconsider the definition. In plain terms, the shorter federal cap is on hold, and state law governs the actual term lengths carriers can sell.
For an agent, that pushes demand your way. Longer available terms mean STM behaves more like a season-spanning plan than a one-month patch, which widens the pool of people it fits. The status can change when the Departments write their next rule, so quote current plan terms from the carrier, not from a headline. But right now, the year-round window is not federally constrained.
Who the short-term medical lead actually is
An STM lead is rarely a random uninsured adult. The people who search for short-term or non-marketplace coverage tend to cluster into a few situations, and knowing which one you are dialing changes your open.
- Between jobs, waiting out a COBRA quote they think is too expensive.
- Self-employed or 1099, priced out of an unsubsidized marketplace plan.
- Missed open enrollment and does not qualify for a special enrollment period.
- Bridging a gap of a few months before a new plan, a spouse’s coverage, or Medicare starts.
Each of those buyers has a different time horizon and a different price ceiling. The gap-filler wants three months and the lowest premium on the board. The self-employed buyer may keep a plan for most of a year. That spread is why a single STM script underperforms, and why matching the lead type to how you sell beats chasing the cheapest available inquiry.
What short-term medical leads and calls cost, and the unit that matters
STM leads price inside the broader U65 off-exchange bands, and the range is wide because the products under that label are not the same. Independent insurance lead pricing guides put health leads anywhere from a few dollars for aged data to a few hundred for exclusive real-time inquiries. On the U65 off-exchange side specifically, the market bands we track and break down here look like this:
| Lead type | Rough market band | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Shared web lead | $20 to $40 per lead | High-volume, fast-dialing teams |
| Exclusive web lead | $40 to $80 per lead | Agents who work every lead deeply |
| Live-transfer call | $120 to $200 per call | Closers who want a prospect already on the line |
| Aged data | Roughly $0.15 to $5 per record | Long-tail nurture, low expectations |
Those are inputs, not the score. The sticker price tells you what a lead costs to acquire. It does not tell you what a sold, kept policy costs you.
The honest unit is cost per verified lead, and past that, cost per retained member. A lead you cannot reach, or a policy that lapses in week six, was never cheap. Aged data looks like a bargain until you count the hours spent dialing disconnected numbers.
Run the math on that basis before you judge a source. A $40 exclusive lead that connects and stays on the books can easily beat a $25 shared lead that never answers.
The persistency trap: the cheap lead is often the expensive one
Short-term medical is a low-persistency product by design. The plans are short, the buyers are transient, and month-to-month coverage lapses quickly. That is fine when you price for it. It becomes a problem when you buy STM leads the way you buy sticky ACA business and expect the same retention.
The trap compounds on the supply side. Because STM sells year-round with no enrollment gate, the channel tends to attract aggressive lead sourcing all year. In practice that means recycled data, co-registration junk, bots filling forms, and contacts who never asked for a call. Every one of those still bills you, and the bad ones drive chargebacks and wasted dial time.
This is where verification earns its keep, and it is the layer Elevarus builds on top of the buy. Three filters do the work against the exact pain above. OTP verification confirms a real person at a real number before the lead reaches you, which is the direct answer to bots and recycled data. Bot and spam detection screens automated and fake traffic out of the pipe. In-market targeting reaches people actively shopping off-exchange coverage rather than anyone who once clicked a health ad.
None of that changes the product’s persistency. But it makes sure the leads you pay for are real people you can actually reach, which is the part you control. Independent lead-quality tooling like TrustedForm exists for the same reason: proof of consent and a real contact are worth more than raw volume.
How short-term medical fits your book: the counter-cyclical complement to ACA
STM is not a standalone business for most agents. It is the piece that flattens the rest of the year. Health lead generation works best when you match channels and products to the calendar, and STM is the product that fills the calendar’s slow months.
The agent who wins off-exchange runs a year-round book, not a fourth-quarter sprint. ACA carries the fall. STM and the other off-exchange products carry spring and summer, when the marketplace is closed to most shoppers. The two even want different account structures if you generate your own demand, which is why ACA and off-exchange belong in separate Google Ads accounts.
Who should skip it: if you only sell subsidized marketplace plans and have no appetite for a shorter, underwritten product, STM leads will frustrate you. The pitch, the compliance posture, and the retention profile are all different. But if you want a book that does not go dark in February, the off-exchange lane is the most direct way to build one. Point a verified STM flow at your slow months and score it on retention. With a short-term product, the member who stays is the one number that separates a real source from a junk one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are short-term medical leads available year-round?
Yes. Short-term medical is an off-exchange product, so it is not tied to ACA open enrollment. People buy it any month of the year, which is why the leads flow year-round and why they fill the gap after the marketplace deadline passes. That evergreen demand is the main reason agents add STM to a seasonal ACA book.
How do short-term medical leads differ from ACA leads?
An ACA lead is a subsidy-eligible shopper who can only enroll during open enrollment or a special enrollment period. A short-term medical lead is a self-pay adult buying an underwritten, non-marketplace plan that does not count as minimum essential coverage. The buyer intent, the price sensitivity, and the sales window are all different, so a script built for one will underperform on the other.
How much do short-term medical leads cost?
STM leads sit inside the U65 off-exchange bands. Shared web leads run roughly $20 to $40, exclusive web leads $40 to $80, and live-transfer calls $120 to $200, with aged data far cheaper. The number that matters is not the sticker price. It is cost per verified, retained member, because an unreachable lead or a policy that lapses fast is expensive at any price.
Is short-term medical still limited to a few months?
The 2024 federal final rule set a three-month initial term and a four-month maximum, but that limit is not being enforced. On August 7, 2025, the Departments said they will not prioritize enforcement pending new rulemaking, so state law currently governs term lengths. Always confirm the actual term with the carrier, since the rule can change.
Should agents buy short-term medical or ACA leads?
Most agents buy both. ACA volume peaks in the fall around open enrollment; short-term medical and the other off-exchange products keep the pipeline moving the rest of the year. If you want a book that stays busy in the ACA off-season and you can sell an underwritten plan, STM leads are the most direct way to smooth out the calendar.
