Why Did 6,000 Washington Health Exchange Participants Lose Coverage?
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Errors plague the State’s Health Benefit Exchange multiple times this year.
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
After a rocky start to its open enrollment on November 15 – the exchange’s website for purchasing health insurance had to be taken down on the first day for incorrectly calculating tax credit amounts – the Washington Health Benefit Exchange has suffered yet another setback, according to KHQ News. Apparently, the automated process accidentally canceled plans and payments for approximately 6,000 users for coverage due to begin January 1, 2015.
In a company statement, CEO Richard Onizuka released apologized for the glitch and assured users the exchange is not taking the issue lightly. He affirmed the company is working to re-confirm all healthcare enrollments for those affected, saying, “Today, the Exchange identified an error affecting 6,000 customer accounts enrolled in Qualified Health Plans.
“Early analysis indicates that our system integrator, Deloitte, ran an automated enrollment cancellation process in error. The affected accounts, which are a portion of the total number of customers who are enrolled in coverage starting on Jan. 1, 2015, experienced an erroneous cancellation of both their enrollment and payment for 2015 coverage.”
The statement also included directions for customers affected by the glitch to re-establish coverage, stating that staff from the exchange would be contacting those whose plans have been compromised. Further, the statement revealed, “The Exchange Board approved a motion to conduct a full review of the code and architecture behind the Washington Healthplanfinder marketplace. We are committed to providing a better customer experience to Washington residents and are taking aggressive steps to ensure our IT vendors are delivering us a quality product and our customers are receiving an excellent online experience.”
The exchange’s first issue, involving incorrect tax credits, was resolved quickly with the site back up in less than two days. It also affected far fewer customers than this new glitch, with errors for fewer than 800 customers.
Last year’s enrollment also had issues during the enrollment period. According to The Puget Sound Business Journal, “Healthplanfinder's inaugural season last year proved to be very frustrating for customers and health exchange staffers alike, with about 24,000 enrollees suffering technical problems with the website throughout the year.”