MNsure enters homestretch in getting coverage for Minnesotans

Source: Pioneer Press, St.self storage Paul, Minn.Dec. 31--Some consumers waited hours on the phone Monday to finalize their health insurance coverage for next year -- and happily learned they'll save big money as a result.Others continued to struggle with quirks in the MNsure health insurance exchange system that for weeks have blocked them from getting coverage.Also Monday, at a news conference in St. Paul, state officials said some who have applied for coverage might want to shop elsewhere if they need insurance Jan. 1. That's because their applications have been stuck in the MNsure system and likely won't be rescued by Tuesday's enrollment deadline.Meanwhile, Minnesota residents were voicing everything from relief and gratitude to continued frustration."I finally have gotten the MNsure mess squared away, thanks to not giving up and the tenacity of a great state employee," Sue Anderson of Ogilvie said Monday."If this was a private company, they'd be out of business," said Tom McCasey of Burnsville, who still doesn't know if he'll be covered.Minnesota's new health insurance exchange on Monday was moving toward a milestone in the state's implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act, with a midnight Tuesday deadline for online enrollment in private and public coverage that takes effect Wednesday. Enrolling after Tuesday means coverage won't kick in until Feb. 1 or later.The federal law requires almost all Americans to have coverage starting with the new year. People who lack health insurance for more than three months in 2014 could face a tax penalty for not complying with the law's individual mandate to obtain coverage.The state's MNsure health exchange is an online marketplace where people can enroll in private health insurance plans and learn whether they qualify for tax credits under the federal law. The website also tells people if they qualify for the income-based Medicaid or MinnesotaCare public health insurance programs.For weeks, consumers have been struggling with MNsure website glitches and long waits at the health exchange call center to finalize coverage for 2014. At a meeting of MNsure's board Monday afternoon, data were released showing that despite the problems, the number of people in the final stage of getting coverage jumped by about one-third in just a two-week period.About 39,000 applicants were in the final stage of the enrollment process on Dec. 14, and that number had grown to about 53,000 by Friday. The figures include people getting both public and private health insurance through MNsure; the state has a goal of enrolling 135,000 in public and private coverage by March 31.While MNsure officials said they are encouraged by the numbers, they also said that several thousand consumers have MNsure applications that are simply stuck in the system. The health exchange is phoning consumers to help remedy the situations, but Scott Leitz, the interim chief executive officer at MNsure, said not everyone would be reached by Tuesday.Consumers might want to buy directly from an insurance company, he said, "if they're getting nervous and haven't heard from us and are concerned about January 1 coverage."At Portico Healthnet, a nonprofit group in St. Paul, consumers were streaming in Monday to finalize health insurance applications, said Rebecca Lozano, the group's outreach program manager. The activity followed a Portico enrollment e迷你倉ent Saturday where health insurance counselors called navigators waited with consumers on hold for nearly three hours before one of MNsure's call center operators responded.Andreia Reierson, 40, of Plymouth endured the wait because she needed the call center to delete her online application for insurance; that way, she could file a new application and get a new determination of her eligibility for public coverage under MinnesotaCare.Counselors at Portico advised that Reierson should re-apply because the MNsure system was wrongly directing her to commercial coverage and not offering her a tax credit. Once the call center operator deleted her application, Reierson spent another hour or so on the new application and wound up with public insurance coverage at a monthly cost of $38.Had she renewed her private health insurance policy, Reierson would have paid $250 per month."It's amazing -- I'm so happy," Reierson said of the coverage she finally found. But of the process, she said: "We have a deadline -- and they don't have enough people to answer the phones?"The average wait time Saturday was 96 minutes, MNsure officials said. There was dramatic improvement Sunday, when the average wait was just 10 minutes, but delays returned Monday.Rich Neumeister of St. Paul testified during the board meeting Monday that he initially waited 45 minutes for help earlier that day, and then another 75 minutes after an operator re-directed his call to an associate.At a meeting earlier this month, board member Tom Forsythe, an executive with Golden Valley-based General Mills, pledged to send one of his company's call center experts to MNsure headquarters to help tackle the problem. The expert determined that the call center actually is well run and has good policies and procedures -- it's just been overwhelmed by calls, Forsythe said at Monday's board meeting.The underlying problem, he said, is that people are stumped by glitches on the MNsure website that can't be handled quickly by call center operators."The issues that they're having to deal with are not normal for a call center," Forsythe said.Board member Lucinda Jesson called on MNsure staff to conduct an end-to-end review of the IT problems with the health exchange website in the coming weeks, so the state can assess which software companies might be responsible for problems. The assessment should guide MNsure's decisions about renewing vendor contracts, Jesson said.MNsure officials have described a number of problems related to software developed by IBM, which is one of four primary information technology vendors. In the past 10 days, IBM dispatched a team of workers to try to help solve stubborn problems.Among other things, the IBM software determines whether individuals are eligible for federal tax credits or public health insurance programs. For weeks, the eligibility determinations coming from MNsure have puzzled consumers as well as insurance agents and navigators who have been trained to provide advice.But Brian Beutner, the MNsure board chairman, said consumers now are "coming through and getting through (the IBM) module much quicker."Christopher Snowbeck can be reached at 651-228-5479. Follow him at .twitter.com/ chrissnowbeck.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Visit the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) at .twincities.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉將軍澳