Covered California Application

Posts related to the Covered California application, consumer account, estimating income, household size, monthly subsidies, health plans, Medi-Cal, and terminations.

Are Certified Enrollment Counselors prepared to answer health insurance questions?

February 14, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 1 Comment

One of the strategies for enrolling hundreds of thousands of California residents in new Covered California health plans was to have an army of in-person Certified Enrollment Counselors. While these folks are trained on how to fill out the Covered California application, they don’t necessarily have any background in health insurance or how it works. Are the Certified Enrollment Counselors (CEC) qualified to answer simple to complex questions about health insurance and will they be there next month when their client has issue?

Covered California’s SHOP not ready for occupancy

February 13, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 1 Comment

The Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) from Covered California has unfortunately proved itself to be just as inept at processing enrollments as the individual and family plan side. What promised to be a stream lined and easy process for small employer groups to offer health insurance to employees through Covered California is beset with a dysfunctional enrollment website and poorly trained support staff. They make Anthem Blue Cross’ decision not to offer plans through SHOP absolutely prophetic.

Will Covered California Medi-Cal claw back payments?

February 11, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 2 Comments

With more working Americans eligible for expanded Medicaid health insurance there is also a growing fear that some government agency will want to seize a recipient’s assets to pay for the health care expenses. Fortunately, the expanded Medicaid, Medi-Cal in California, works under slightly different rules and provides some protection against “claw back” of assets to satisfy health care debt. However, one age group may be subject to Medi-Cal estate recovery rules under expanded Medicaid.

Changing Covered California plans may be hazardous to your health

February 10, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 2 Comments

What should be a simple task of changing from one Covered California health plan to a new one is proving to be no easy switch. The Covered California CalHEERS internet based program seems incapable of handling the switch between health plans for residents. People are complaining of retroactively cancelled policies, odd effective dates and a system unable to handle simple billing issues.

Covered California scraps doctor finder feature

February 8, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 1 Comment

Covered California is finally scrapping their error filled doctor search feature on their ACA enrollment website. Initially conceived to help match families with health plans that supported their current physicians, it had problems from the start. Covered California announced in a press release they will be taking their provider directory offline until further notice.

What are the real Covered California enrollment numbers?

February 7, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 2 Comments

Covered California has provided basic statistics and pretty pie charts on enrollment numbers into the ACA health plans that they offer. But what is left out is the statistical data that economists and demographers would like to have to ascertain if the Affordable Care Act is merely working or if it is actually fulfilling the promise to reduce health disparities in our communities with affordable health insurance.

Health Net slashes agent commissions

February 1, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 5 Comments

Health Net notified all their California agents by a letter dated January 29th, that effective March 1, 2014, they will slash the sales commission by over 50% on four of their five individual and family plans offered in California. This further reduction in compensation for agents since the ACA was passed continues to make customer service oriented health insurance agents a “family of dinosaurs” who will quickly become extinct.

Covered California releases worthless health plan rating report

January 30, 2014 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

In an attempt to help consumers decide on the right health plan, Covered California has compiled a star rating system for the health insurance carriers based on outdated information. Even worse than basing a report on old data is the disastrous customer service that many Californians have experienced from many of these health insurance companies, including Covered California, in the last two months. The horrible customer service and nightmare enrollment process is not reflected in the new quality rating results.

Covered California needs walk-in enrollment centers

January 28, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 2 Comments

Covered California just announced they received another grant for more marketing of their health plans. In the words of one of the Covered California Board members, Paul Fearer, “I’m concerned about ramping up on media if we aren’t fully prepared to deal or provide excellent customer service in response.” Covered California needs to scrap the slick marketing and “one touch and done” concept to enrollment and open up walk-in enrollment centers to service Californian residents.

Covered California Board Meeting, January 2014

January 27, 2014 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

At the January 23, 2014 Covered California Board meeting I made public comments regarding the numerous applications for enrollment that had failed to be transmitted to chosen health insurance carriers. I have documented the numerous instances where I’ve enrolled individuals and families into a Covered California health plan only to learn the health insurance company never received the data.

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Covered California Application