CMS Launches Campaign to Ensure Enrollment in Marketplace for 2015
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working to ensure consumers who enrolled in health insurance in the inaugural year of the exchange are reenrolling for 2015.
CMS is encouraging consumers to update their 2015 applications once open enrollment begins on November 15 and compare new options in the marketplace. Consumers will begin to receive notices from the in the mail and in their HealthCare.gov accounts, explaining how they can renew their coverage during the second year of open enrollment. The notices consumers will begin receiving explain the renewal process and how they can return to the marketplace between November 15, 2014, and December 15, 2014, to update their application for next year.
In addition, to help simplify the reenrollment process, when consumers return to HealthCare.gov starting on November 15 to initiate their 2015 application, 90% of their online application will be prefilled or prepopulated. In-person assistance will be available to help review an applicant’s options and to find a plan that is appropriate. An additional 1000 call center representatives are being added this year that will be available to answer questions and walk consumers through the coverage process.
“It is important for people to come back to the marketplace during open enrollment, because every year, insurance companies make changes to premiums, cost-sharing, and benefits. And with 25% more issuers offering coverage in 2015, consumers have more plans to choose from and more issuers are competing to offer a better deal,” said Marilyn Tavenner, administrator, CMS, in a statement.
If consumers do not return to the marketplace to update their application, they generally will be automatically enrolled in the same plan, with the same amount of advance payment of the premium tax credit and same cost-sharing reductions as the 2014 plan year. They can change plans during open enrollment through February 15, 2015, with coverage in their new plan starting on the first day of the next or second month depending on when they enroll.
To help consumers better understand the renewal process, CMS is releasing the following “5 Steps to Staying Covered:”
1) Review: Plans change, people change; review your coverage and look for a letter from your plan about how your benefits and costs may change next year.
2) Update: Starting November 15, log in and update your 2015 application; make sure your household income and other information is up-to-date for next year.
3) Compare: Compare your current plan with other plans that are available in your area.
4) Choose: Select the health plan that best fits your budget and health needs.
5) Enroll: The marketplace opens on November 15; make sure to review, update, compare, and choose by December 15 to have any changes take effect on January 1, 2015. Contact your plan after you have enrolled and make sure you pay your first month’s premium.
Click here for more on these notices.—Kerri Fitzgerald
