Healthcare Technology Featured Article

December 04, 2013

White House Disputes Accusations that One-Third of Healthcare.gov Sign Ups Are Error-Ridden


While the White House has touted recent dramatic improvements to the Healthcare.gov Web site, the error-plagued federal health insurance exchange hub, there may be more woes ahead both for the federal government and the individuals who have used the Web site to sign up. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, there are significant errors generated by the computer system that may result in problems for the policy subscribers.

According to two sources in both the government and the health care industry, these may have affected about one-third of the 330,000 people who have signed up for health plans via the federal site since he rollout began on the first of October, and might result in subscribers not getting the plans they believe they are purchasing. These errors, which are on the so-called 834 forms, or the nightly enrollment forms sent to health insurance company with information about new subscribers, are said to include failure to notify insurers about new customers, duplicate enrollments or cancellation notices for the same person, incorrect information about family members, and mistakes involving federal subsidies, according to the Washington Post.

While 20 states have chosen to run their own exchanges or operate in cooperation with the federal exchanges, the remaining 30 states have elected to leave administration of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) entirely up to the federal government. There is no evidence that individuals buying insurance on the state exchanges, where sign-ups have gone more smoothly, are facing the same problems as those shopping in the federal marketplace.

The White House is disputing the conclusions of the Washington Post’s two sources, and when questioned on Monday did not reveal how many federal healthcare enrollments have been affected by software-related errors that might delay subscribers’ insurance coverage, though the White House has promised fixes to the problems now that it has largely solved the issues of workability on the Healthcare.gov Web site.

The one-third error rate figure claimed by some “doesn’t accurately reflect the picture of what’s happening right now,” said White House senior communications adviser Tara McGuinness. “We’ve got a team of experts already working closely with issuers to make sure that every past and future 834 is accurate. We’re confident they’ll succeed,” she said.

Many of the errors may be due to how people are using the Healthcare.gov Web site, for example clicking twice on certain parts of the form, which would indicate continued usability problems with the Web site. 




Edited by Cassandra Tucker
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