Scrambling to get as many people as possible health coverage by Jan. 1 despite Obamacare's botched roll-out, the Obama administration ordered insurers to give customers a slight break on bill payments, and "strongly" suggested a series of other breaks Thursday.
And administration officials also warned they may again extend the Dec. 23 deadline for enrolling in Obamacare insurance plans for the start of the new year should "exceptional circumstances pose barriers to customers enrolling by that date" via HealthCare.gov and other government-run health exchanges. Those exchanges have seen drastically fewer numbers of people sign up for health plans than originally projected.
"We are providing additional flexibility to consumers across the country to ensure they have access to coverage options that begin on Jan. 1, 2014," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, as she announced the latest series of measures.
Sebelius urged insurers to begin covering enrollees by Jan. 1, even if those people make their first premiums payment later in January. Aetna has already said it will allow Obamacare plan enrollees until Jan. 8 to make their first premium payments for plans beginning Jan. 1.
She also announced that HHS is now requiring that insurers accept payments as late as Dec. 31 for selected Obamacare plans that will begin Jan. 1, instead of leaving that payment deadline up to the insurers.
And she strongly urged insurers to accept partial premium payments for coverage that begins that day.
She also is now also urging insurers to cover people by Jan. 1 even if they select plans after the current Dec. 23 deadline set by HHS. That would include allowing people to have coverage retroactively effective Jan. 1 even if they actually sign up later in the month, which would let people who are eligible for tax subsidies to offset their insurance purchases apply them for that month.
And HHS is allowing a "special enrollment period" that will give people who had problems with the federal and state-run Obamacare exchanges more time than they would have had to sign up and get coverage by Jan. 1.
Those problems could include so-called 834 file errors, which affect the electronic transmission of enrollment forms to insurers from the exchanges—errors that could lead to delays in formal enrollments. Up to one in four of the 365,000 enrollments as of Nov. 30 had such errors, and the error rate this month still may be as high as one in 10.
In a series of suggestions designed to let consumers maintain existing relationships with doctors and continue drug treatments in January, the first month of their new coverage, HHS repeatedly said in a news release that is was "strongly encouraging" insurers to grant three specific requests.
Those included urging insurers to pay out benefits for use of "out-of-network" health providers by their customers to the same degree they do for those who use "in-network providers" in the case of emergencies. And Sebelius asked insurers to treat providers who drop out of their plan's network sometime during the open enrollment period as if they were still in the network, for the purpose of covering customers' benefits.
She likewise "strongly" encouraged insurers to refill prescriptions in January that have been covered by their enrollees' prior insurance plans.
Finally, HHS will allow nearly 86,000 people who currently are in a federally run high-risk insurance pool a one-month extension to stay in that pool until Jan. 31 so they have more time to obtain replacement coverage through the Obamacare exchanges.
The insurance industry -- which in recent weeks has been repeatedly asked by the administration to help it mitigate the messes created by HealthCare.gov -- seemed ready to help out yet again, but not happy about it.
Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of industry lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans, said, "Helping consumers obtain the secure, affordable coverage they need is health plans' top priority. With only weeks to go before coverage begins, continued changes to the rules and guidance could exacerbate the challenges associated with helping consumers through the enrollment process. Health plans will continue to do everything they can to protect consumers from potential coverage disruptions caused by the ongoing technical problems with Healthcare.gov."
Sebelius' department has been reeling from the troubled launch of HealthCare.gov, which was revealed to have scores of software-related problems after its Oct. 1 launch. Those problems crippled enrollment in the first month of operation, and lead her weeks later to extend the Dec. 15 deadline for enrolling in coverage beginning Jan. 1 to Dec. 23.
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
