Healthcare Technology Featured Article

July 11, 2014

Mistakes Plague Connecticut's State Insurance Exchange


Hartford, Conn., may be known as the nation’s insurance capital, but when it comes to health insurance coverage mistakes are abound.

Access Health CT, the state’s insurance exchange set up to meet the mandates required by the Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare), has reported some 5,784 customers had incorrect tax credits.

Most of the blame comes from computer error. “The exchange's faulty computer system was to blame for an estimated 80 percent of the problem,” according to a report from The Hartford Courant newspaper—just 20 percent was blamed on user error.

Access Health CT was supposed to call customers on Friday to let them know about the incorrect tax credit.

Because of the errors, some 3,900 customers were told they qualified for Medicaid, but in reality they did not qualify. In addition, many customers got an excessive bill for health insurance. And most surprising some 903 customers were actually dropped by an insurance company, though they will be picked up again.

Someone can get a subsidy or tax credit on health insurance costs if their income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, according to The Courant. That works out to $45,960 for an individual or $94,200 for a family of four.

The system error was discovered on July 1, but similar issues were known about earlier. The exchange installed a filter on July 7, and by July 18 a permanent fix will be installed to remedy the situation, officials claim.

Connecticut is not alone in technical glitches when it comes to Obamacare implementation, as the government tried to fix problems. The Washington Times said J.D. Power, the market research firm, undertook a survey on the overhaul, and found during initial sign-up technical problems prevented 40 percent of those questioned from signing up. Many of the 15 state-run “struggled throughout the sign-up period,” the newspaper reported. Similar problems faced the www.healthcare.gov website.

Consumers using the national site said they could not create accounts, could not complete applications, or could not compare offerings, and health insurers said they got incomplete or inaccurate information from consumers.

“The website has not worked as well as it should," Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a Congressional hearing late last year. 




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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