Covered California mobile application will help with comparison shopping for health insurance.
The challenge for consumers has always been getting good information with which to compare products. Insurance is perhaps the most difficult product to compare because companies distort the low rates with sparse benefits or surprise copayments. Covered California has announced that a mobile application will be released in September to help consumers easily compare the new health plans.
Health agents get comparison tool with mobile app
While the new mobile application has been developed with the health insurance agent in mind, anyone should be able to down load it on their Apple or Android smart phone or tablets and use it for comparison shopping. Set to release in early September, the Covered California mobile app will not have the ability to enroll individuals or families in a health plan. It is simply a tool for determining eligibility for the premium subsidy and comparing plans offered in the zip code entered.
Private information safeguards
Covered California’s CalHEERS website for enrollment into a health plan is fairly straight forward but has various layers pertaining to physicians and prescription medication that haven’t been built into the mobile application. Part of the issue with the scaled down version of the mobile app for comparison shopping revolves around private personal and medical information.
The mobile application will highlight the health plan with the most value, in this case the Enhanced Silver 87 Plan.
Will my family qualify for Medi-Cal Kids?
The mobile application is more of an estimating tool. It is not set up to address the different sources of individual or family incomes, health insurance offered by an employer or whether a family member has other health insurance like VA coverage. One nice feature is that it will tell families if the entered annual income qualifies the children for the new Medi-Cal Kids program which used to be Healthy Families. Households with children under 19 that qualify will automatically be enrolled in Medi-Cal Kids. The new mobile app will show just the health insurance premium for the adults.
Medi-Cal Kids will be automatically calculated based on the household income.
Spanish language version of the mobile app
As of August 14th, 7,200 health insurance agents had pre-registered for training to certify them to offer Covered California individual or small group insurance plans. So it looks like there will be plenty of demand for the mobile application as we move into open enrollment in October. There will also be a Spanish language version of the mobile application.
To view other screen shots of the Covered California mobile application click on the thumbnails below. The application is going through review to pick up any little errors and the final version may display information differently from these preliminary screen shots.
