Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts on the development and implementation of the California health insurance market place, application, account, enrollment, termination.
Covered California is ratcheting up the emails and letters to consumers on a variety of topics from immigration verification to renewing their health plans for 2015. Some of these letters for additional information, consent, or to manage verifications will ultimately be confusing to the consumer. In a Certified Insurance Agent webinar, Covered California went over […]
How health insurance companies and health plans determine premium rate increases is a little bit of a mystery. Covered California didn’t add to the consumer’s understanding of this process when they released their 2015 health insurance booklet. The plan rates booklet is mostly marketing material and fails to provide specific rates by region, carrier, and […]
In a presentation by Executive Director Peter Lee to the Board of Covered California on the potential effects of the health insurance rate regulation proposal to go before California voters in November, known as Prop. 45, it was clear the passage of the California Department of Insurance supported proposition could present significant challenges to the […]
Covered California has updated the CalHEERS income section of the individual and family plan application to accommodate partial year employment. This was accomplished with the insertion of simple date fields. Now, instead of the annualized income from a job a client has left, the employment can just have a start and end date. Changes to […]
Contrary to Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) statements in their Medi-Cal Essentials webinar, agents will not be receiving any payments for assisting clients that were enrolled into Medi-Cal through a Covered California application in the near future. Recent email communication from Covered California to Certified Insurance Agents suggests thatcompensation of approximately $58 per Medi-Cal […]
A significant change to the plan types offered for individuals and families through Covered California for 2015 will be Health Net dropping their Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans. In place of the PPO health plans, Health Net will offer Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO) health plans. This change may be particularly significant for members who relied on […]
There have been few changes to the standard benefit design between 2014 and 2015 health plans offered through Covered California. A comparison of the metal levels offered in 2014 to the standard benefit design announced by Covered California for 2015 individual and family plans reveals modest changes to copayment amounts for prescription drugs, maximum out-of-pocket […]
Have you ever wondered how one of your Covered California accounts got changed when you know that neither you nor the client touched application? Covered California accounts are being mysteriously changed without the applicants knowledge or consent. If you check the Transaction History of the account you might find that this mysterious user known as […]
Throughout the past year of enrolling individuals and families into the Covered California health plans, Certified Insurance Agents were in the dark when it came to Medi-Cal. The Department of Health Care Services held a webinar on July 31st to review of the essential basics of the Medi-Cal program. Even if you only review the […]
On August 4th Covered California rolled out another enhancement to their CalHEERS program called “identity proofing”. Before an account holder, Covered California customer service representative (CSR) or Certified Insurance Agent can either Report a Change or create a new enrollment for a health plan, the primary applicant’s identity must be verified. This “Identity Proofing”, as it […]
