A state board on Friday plans to begin the search for a company that will market the health insurance exchanges that the board plans to establish for small businesses and individual consumers.
The firm hired by the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace board will develop a design for the website that will replace healthcare.gov as the portal that business owners and individual consumers in Arkansas use to shop for coverage and apply for subsidies to help pay for it.
The marketing firm will help the board "establish a clear AHIM brand that will resonate with Arkansans" and conduct marketing campaigns, including television and radio advertisements, to promote enrollment, according to a draft of the request for proposals that the board plans to issue Friday.
The marketplace board's outreach and marketing committee reviewed the draft Monday at the marketplace's offices in Little Rock.
Although the amount of the contract hasn't been determined, the board said in a grant application that it planned to allocate up to $10 million over two years for the project.
An early task for the marketing firm will be working with insurance brokers, accountants and business groups to promote enrollment in the small-business exchange, which the marketplace board plans to establish this year for coverage that will start Jan. 1, 2016.
Enrollment through the exchange would give some small businesses access to federal tax credits, but the federal online-enrollment portal currently available to Arkansas businesses has been "not real easy to work with," marketplace board member Fred Bean, president of a Little Rock benefits consulting firm, said at the meeting.
He said his firm began trying to sign up a south Arkansas company for coverage through the federal exchange in early December but didn't complete the process until this month, in part because the federal portal was not functional for much of December.
Some brokers also might be discouraged by the low commissions they earn from signing up customers through the federal exchange for individual consumers, he said.
"It's education and communication that we'll have to work on," Bean said.
Health insurance exchanges were established in every state under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Arkansas is among more than 30 states that have relied on exchanges set up by the federal government. Act 1500 of 2013 created the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace and directed it to set up exchanges that the state will use instead of the federal ones.
As of Dec. 15, more than 233,000 Arkansans were enrolled in plans on the state's federally run exchange, including more than 188,000 whose premiums are paid with federal Medicaid funds under the state's so-called private option and 106 people enrolled through the small-business exchange.
The marketplace, a nonprofit organization subject to legislative supervision, was awarded a $99.9 million federal grant to establish the exchanges and operate them for one year. After the first year, the exchanges will be supported by user fees that will replace a federal 3.5 percent premium fee now assessed on non-Medicaid plans offered through the federal exchanges.
The marketplace plans to establish the exchange for individuals next year for coverage taking effect in 2017.
At a meeting in Little Rock today, another marketplace board committee plans to evaluate proposals from companies bidding for a contract to build the small-business exchange's technological framework. The board has also solicited proposals in search of a firm that it will hire to monitor the company hired for the small-business exchange technology contract.
Supporters of Arkansas-based exchanges say they could be tailored to better fit the state's needs. For instance, the state could design a single portal to be used as a starting point to enroll in unsubsidized coverage, private option plans or coverage subsidized by tax credits.
Currently applicants apply for Medicaid-funded coverage through a state website, access.arkansas.gov. Those who qualify choose a private option plan using another state site, insureark.org. Consumers with higher incomes -- up to 400 percent of the poverty level -- can apply for tax credits through healthcare.gov.
The draft request for proposals from marketing firms calls for responses to be submitted by Feb. 13 and a contract to be awarded by Feb. 27.
Metro on 01/13/2015