Blue Cross of Illinois - 2016 News of Interest

[AllenChicago]

October 22, 2015

FYI..there's a new 2016 Individual Product commission schedule posted at Blue Access for Producers.
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[SamIam]

I didn't see any changes.

 

[AllenChicago]

I didn't see any changes.

I think there might be some in the wording that describes what constitutes a replacement vs new business. Unfortunately, I don't have the current schedule to compare against the new one. Maybe (hopefully) someone else will chime in here with their findings.

At any rate, in this environment, "no change" is good!

 

[Pancur]

Now you can see 2016 rates for current customers if you run a report in Retail Producer Portal. The rate increase is more than I thought.

 

[AllenChicago]

Now you can see 2016 rates for current customers if you run a report in Retail Producer Portal. The rate increase is more than I thought.

Thanks for this info, Pancur. I just looked. The numbers are all goofy. The notification at the top of the Blue Cross report page says that the premium amounts are only correct if there are no spouses, or dependents on the plan. Well, that means only 10% are correct. I hope the letters being mailed out to BCBSIL customers next week are accurate. The subsidy amount would need to be included too, or our clients will freak out.

 

[AllenChicago]

July 16, 2015

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois is indeed cancelling all Grandmothered individual plans (those effective between 3.23.10 and 12.31.13) on December 31, 2015.

Here is a link to the SERFF page that contains links to the letter notifying the Illinois DOI of the upcoming cancellations, and the letter being mailed to all affected insured's before 9/30/2015.

SERFF URL: https://filingaccess.serff.com/sfa/search/filingSummary.xhtml?filingId=130151165

October 24, 2015

It looks like Blue Cross has had a change of heart. According to their latest filing document, the "Grandmothered" (aka Transitional) plans will be renewed for one additional year, following guidelines laid out in this IL DOI notice to health insurers.

Ref: http://insurance2.illinois.gov/cb/2015/CB2015-06.pdf

The specific BCBSIL extension filing notice was approved by the Dept of Insurance on 10/23/2015 and is attached to this post. There will be a substantial premium increase for these 67,000 BCBSIL customers on 1/1/2016. Perhaps large enough to push many of them to an ACA plan..which is most likely what BCBSIL wants to accomplish.

 

[prencik]

Does anybody knows what doctor's network is utilized by BCBS Multi-State Plan? It seems for me that it's the same network as their broad PPO?

 

[SamIam]

I thought they were getting rid of the multistate?

 

[prencik]

No it is on the HC.gov and it looks it's cheaper than Blue Choice Preferred. They also included that plan in their 2016 product training guide.

 

[AllenChicago]

Does anybody knows what doctor's network is utilized by BCBS Multi-State Plan? It seems for me that it's the same network as their broad PPO?

Multi-state uses the Blue Choice Preferred network. No individual plan is using the wide Blue PPO network in 2016. Just groups.

Note: The Multi-state plans no longer looks to be Multi-State. I just looked up hospitals in Dallas for a student attending college there, and they're aren't any. Not anymore. "Multi-state" appears to be just a name now. Maybe that ObamaCare tentacle got chopped off by Congress too.