Preparing For 2015 Open Enrollment

[AllenChicago]

AC take a ten day vacation....Dr's orders......Ratt N' Roll for 3 months after...

NO NO NO Houcoogster. I want to pre-enroll/pre-load my 12/31/14 Aetna & Humana terminations into a BCBSIL plan before November 15th, so I'm free to go make new clients during those 3 months. Can't do that if I don't have the premiums... and in some cases, the 2015 subsidy $$$ numbers.
ac

 

[kgmom219]

NO NO NO Houcoogster. I want to pre-enroll/pre-load my 12/31/14 Aetna & Humana terminations into a BCBSIL plan before November 15th, so I'm free to go make new clients during those 3 months. Can't do that if I don't have the premiums... and in some cases, the 2015 subsidy $$$ numbers.
ac

Best money I spent this year was on Norvax, AC. I am entering the current clients now. When the rates are there, I can click a button and hit send. PLUS, the clients will be there forever, so I can do this every year. All my quotes will now come out of Norvax.

BCBS will probably hold onto the rates until 11/15. Which is a weekend, so it will be the 17th.

 

[Yagents]

Fun fun funny times ahead

More Problems Expected on Federal Health-Insurance Site in New Year - WSJ - WSJ

Consumers who bought policies on the exchange for 2014 and switch to a different insurer for 2015 could end up enrolled in two plans, with bills for both, in January, according to two industry officials. Others who stopped paying premiums for their plans this year could find themselves automatically re-enrolled in those plans for 2015 regardless of whether they want them.

Meanwhile, lower-earning Americans who receive federal tax credits to offset the cost of their coverage might not get a form they need to file their 2014 taxes because the federal government has an incorrect address for them, these officials say.
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Instead, starting Dec. 16, the Obama administration plans to send insurers two lists of their customers. One will list new enrollees. The other will list people who enrolled with them last year, didn’t back come to the site and should be automatically re-enrolled for 2015. Health plans will have until Jan. 1 to try to figure out which of their current customers don’t appear on either list, and remove them.

Carriers plan to err on the side of leaving people on their plans instead of incorrectly removing them, industry officials say. The result is they expect some customers will find themselves still enrolled in their 2014 plan once their policy with a new carrier starts Jan. 1. Some insurers hope consumers will directly inform them they are leaving.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees implementation of the 2010 health law, is looking into ways to directly tell insurers which consumers plan to leave them at the end of the year, spokesman Aaron Albright said Tuesday.

Federal officials are also rushing to finish processing hundreds of thousands more records by Dec. 15 to identify people who shouldn’t have their 2014 coverage automatically renewed because they haven’t kept up with premium payments. If the federal government misses any of those people by Dec. 15, they could be enrolled in coverage for 2015, insurance officials say.

 

[AllenChicago]

Fun fun funny times ahead

More Problems Expected on Federal Health-Insurance Site in New Year - WSJ - WSJ

WOW! This will indeed be an insane few months. You'll have people who are already angry at being double-billed, finding out that their subsidy was applied to the plan they thought was cancelled. Then you further burden them with January's IRS-subsidy tax filing reconciliation hell, if they get the forms...
KAAA-BOOM!
ac

 

[kgmom219]

My BCBS rep and I were discussing this and they really don't think its necessary to do a separate term to the 2014 carrier. She seems to think the 834 file will handle it.

I trust no one and my clients who switch carriers will have termination letters sent to the carrier.

Now if only the rates were out so I could see if I was moving anyone.....

 

[houcoogster]

WOW! This will indeed be an insane few months. You'll have people who are already angry at being double-billed, finding out that their subsidy was applied to the plan they thought was cancelled. Then you further burden them with January's IRS-subsidy tax filing reconciliation hell, if they get the forms...
KAAA-BOOM!
ac

And to think.... people thought they could do this without an agent. Just like buying an airline ticket on Kayak.com(sound familiar....lol). Keep adding those layers of complexity...... my value and worth increase with each layer.

 

[AllenChicago]

November 8, 2014

Last year was the initial introduction of Qualified Health Plans. Insurers had Benefit Summaries, Outlines of Coverage, Brochures, Forms, etc. available well before 2014 Open Enrollment commenced.

This year, none of the national or IL health insurers have any of the sales support information ready, even though their 2015 health plans were approved months ago, and a year's experience is under their belts.

What the hell is wrong with health insurance companies this year? Is it like this in your state too?
ac

 

[sunkarma11]

That's not a mess at all... double enrolled.

Brilliant maneuver, considering CMS never provided the marketplace/carriers with a method of removing plans in the event that information didn't transfer correctly and had to be re-done, the client never had access to the plan, etc. You name it, if there are two plans in the system, the marketplace doesn't have a way to remove the incorrect plan and the carrier refuses to do so without the Marketplace telling them to. The plan should be 'nulled'; the plan effective and term dates should both indicate the first of the month.

Not only will they be double billed - there is NO method to rescind the incorrect bill to stop billing and the carriers, in their infinite wisdom have no problem sending people to collections.

Took me 10 months to find the way to correct this for one of my clients... Looks like I will be sprinkling lots of magic fairy dust this year. I'm off to start brewing then.

Brilliant.

 

[TxOnline]

November 8, 2014

Last year was the initial introduction of Qualified Health Plans. Insurers had Benefit Summaries, Outlines of Coverage, Brochures, Forms, etc. available well before 2014 Open Enrollment commenced.

This year, none of the national or IL health insurers have any of the sales support information ready, even though their 2015 health plans were approved months ago, and a year's experience is under their belts.

What the hell is wrong with health insurance companies this year? Is it like this in your state too?
ac

I attended ALL of the local carrier-sponsored events in October
hoping to walk away with ONE main thing...2015 plan benefits.

Not ONE of them had them ready!
Blamed it on the State of Texas (not approved yet).

Cigna's meeting was a few days ago (in Nov).
They DID have 2015 Plan Benefit info for us.

Some of our carriers STILL don't have that info posted online.

I'm just wondering HOW the Quote Engines are going to have that info for us in less-than 1 week from now.

I can "punt" using the Quote Engine details; but I SURE like to be more prepared than this. Do they WANT us to look like un-informed idiots?

 

[Yagents]

I guarantee we will have ON exchange quoting by Nov 15th.

My question is, who will have OFF exchange quoting on Nov 15th????

which WBE's will offer OFF exchange? Will we have to go to carriers directly?