Covered California creates confusion with extended payment deadline

The announcement from Covered California that health insurance companies have extended the deadline for making the first premium payment until January 15th has done nothing to lessen the confusion and anxiety residents are experiencing with the new health plans. For those families who still haven’t received an invoice, the extended payment window is of little comfort. Covered California really needs to issue an explanation and apology for why the billing nightmare has been allowed to unfold in the first place.

Covered California sends scar-e-mail

In early January Covered California sent an email to all applicants reminding them to pay their premium by January 6th. This correspondence, emailed to families who had not even received an invoice, sent Californians scrambling to figure how they were suppose to pay Covered California. Even by the time Covered California had sent the ominous email to pay by the deadline or risk loosing coverage, some of the insurers had already extended the payment deadline to January 10th. The same weekend Covered California sent their email, Kaiser had initiated a telephone campaign informing new applicants they had until January 10th to pay.

Where’s the Covered California or ANY invoice?

The new January 15th deadline is of little consolation to those who still have not received an invoice and for whom the health plan still has no record of their Covered California enrollment. Families that didn’t have their insurance cancelled by the ill-fated Covered California forced policy cancellation of December 31 are now wrestling if they should make their current health plan premium for January. The utter lack of communication between Covered California and the health plans has left many families without knowing if they do or don’t have health insurance.

Cancelling appointments, paying cash

Without health insurance, families have been forced to pay out-of-pocket for office visits and prescription medications. One gentleman called me to tell me he had to pay for his insulin out-of-pocket because without a member ID number from his health plan there was no discount for his prescription. This gentleman had actually enrolled through Covered California in early December for his new health plan. The intractably long wait times to contact either his new health insurance carrier or Covered California had made it impossible for him to confirm where his enrollment was in the process.

Who is to blame for the bottleneck?

The failure of Covered California to create a seamless application data transfer to the health insurance companies has resulted in enormous anxiety and cost for California residents. While it has been reported that the health insurance companies are having their own information technology issues with the Covered California transfers and data entry, the lead agency, Covered California, should have been ahead of the curve in anticipating such bottlenecks in the system.

Covered California owes us an apology

The extension of the payment deadline is an admission that Covered California failed to properly plan for all the different IT scenarios between them and the carriers. Covered California owes the applicants an apology for the stress they are causing to families and a full accounting of what went wrong that has led to the chaos and confusion surrounding enrollment in the new health plans.

Covered California Payment Deadline Press Release

COVERED CALIFORNIA HEALTH PLANS EXTEND PAYMENT DEADLINE TO JANUARY 15, 2014

Consumers Given Nine Additional Days to Make Payment; Coverage Still Effective Starting Jan. 1, 2014

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Covered California’s eleven health insurance companies unanimously agreed Saturday to extend the deadline for consumers to submit payment for their first month’s premium.

Consumers now have until Jan. 15, 2014 to make payment to the companies. The nine additional days will ease feelings consumers may have of being rushed to pay the invoices they recently received.

The extension also assures health insurance companies time to mail the invoices and for consumers to have received the documents. Payment for coverage taking effect Jan. 1 must be in the hands of the health insurance companies by Jan. 15 and not simply postmarked or in-transit.

Meanwhile, about 200,000 households with coverage due to take effect Jan. 1, and who supplied their email addresses to Covered California, will receive direct notification about the payment deadline extension. Consumers can also visit www.CoveredCA.com  for instructions on how to pay their premium.

Health insurance companies stress that this is a one-time payment deadline extension, and that payment for coverage is due at the beginning of each month.

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