43,446 Arkansans enroll in exchange for health coverage

Tally counts only ‘unique enrollees’

The federal tally of enrollment through health-insurance exchanges in every state includes only “unique enrollees,” a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said this week.


RELATED ARTICLES

http://www.arkansas…">Late surge buoys rolls at health exchangeshttp://www.arkansas…">State’s Medicaid rolls add 22,000 kids

But the spokesman, Fabien Levy, didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry Thursday about whether the total includes plans that are no longer in effect.

“When we release our monthly reports, we count the number of unique enrollees at that time,” Levy said in an email. “We are confident we have taken appropriate measures to ensure consumers are not double counted.”

The federal department reported Thursday that 43,446 Arkansans who did not qualify for Medicaid had enrolled in coverage through the state’s insurance exchange.

That total was in line with tallies released previously by the Arkansas Insurance Department, which collects information from insurance companies every two weeks.

The Insurance Department reported that 41,401 Arkansans had enrolled for coverage as of April 7. As of April 21, that number had climbed to 44,665.

The insurance department’s totals include plans that have been canceled - 2,960 as of April 7 and 4,091 as of April 21.

Excluding the canceled plans, Arkansas’ enrollment stood at 38,441 on April 7 and 40,574 as of April 21, according to the Insurance Department’s figures.

Insurance Department officials say their definition of “enrollment” is the same as that of the Health and Human Services Department.

Insurance Department spokesman Heather Haywood acknowledged that if a consumer enrolled in a plan, then canceled and signed up for a different plan offered by a different insurance company, the same consumer would be counted twice in the Insurance Department’s total.

However, if the consumer signed up for a different plan offered by the same insurance company that had offered the canceled plan, the canceled plan would be removed from the total, she said.

In a response to an inquiry from Haywood, Richard Olague, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in an email Monday that canceled plans are not “counted” in the federal totals.

“From what I understand, consumers would only be counted once even if they cancel a plan and then sign up for another plan since we only count active enrollments,” Olague said. “So cancellations are not counted.”

Haywood said, however, that doesn’t mean the federal totals don’t include the canceled plans.

“We feel confident that we are reporting the same enrollment,” Haywood said. “We just have the capability to also report premium payment status, and that gives a bigger picture as to what enrollment in the health-insurance marketplace looks like,” she said.

She said the department’s totals could differ slightly from the federal totals because of the delay associated with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sending information on enrollees to the insurance companies.

Plans can be canceled by insurance companies if the applicant fails to make a premium payment before the coverage is scheduled to take effect.

Once at least one premium payment has been made for a subsidized plan, the companies are required to wait 90 days before canceling a plan for failure to make additional monthly premium payments.

In a report to an advisory panel, Insurance Department officials said plans could be listed as canceled because a consumer failed to make the initial premium payment, decided to switch plans, or became eligible for Medicaid or other coverage.

The Insurance Department’s total as of April 21 also included 11,924 enrollees who had not yet made their first month’s premium payment but whose plan had not been canceled, and 219 enrollees who had made at least one premium payment but were within the 90-day grace period.

Front Section, Pages 8 on 05/02/2014

Upcoming Events