According to CMS.gov (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), the first week of Open Enrollment 2016 for the Health Insurance Marketplace Coverage, millions of people reviewed coverage options, learned what financial assistance is available, or to sign-up and/or re-enroll in a plan that best meets their needs.
Similar to last year, each week, CMS will release weekly Open Enrollment Snapshots for the Healthcare.gov platform, which is used by the Federally-Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) and State Partnership Marketplaces, as well as some State-Based Marketplaces. These snapshots provide point-in-time estimates of weekly plan selections, call center activity and visits to Healthcare.gov, and Spanish partner, CuidadoDeSalud.gov. The final number of plan selections associated with enrollment activate to date would fluctuate as plan changes or cancellation occur, in response to like changes (getting a new job, marriage, divorce, etc.)
As you can see the details on the data from the chart and glossary provided below.
Glossary
Plan Selections: Weekly metrics show a preliminary total of those applicants submitted. Each week’s plan selections reflect the total number of plans selected from the beginning of Open Enrollment. Plan selections include those consumers who are automatically re-enrolled into their current plan or another plan with similar benefits, which occurs at the end of December. However. This number can and will change based on enrollees who do not pay first month’s premium. To have their coverage effectuated, consumers generally need to pay their first month’s health plan premium. This release does not include totals for effectuated enrollments.
New Consumers: A consumer is considered to be a new consumer if they did not have Marketplace coverage at the start of Open Enrollment.
Renewing Consumers: A consumer is considered to be a renewing consumer if they had 2015 Marketplace coverage at the start of Open Enrollment and either actively select the same plan or a new plan for 2016 or are automatically re-enrolled into their current plan or another plan, which occurs at the end of December.
Marketplace: Generally, references to the Health Insurance Marketplace in this report refer to 38 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform. The states using the HealthCare.gov platform are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
HealthCare.gov States: The 38 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform for the 2016 benefit year, including the Federally-facilitated Marketplace, State Partnership Marketplaces and State-based Marketplaces.
Applications Submitted: This includes a consumer who is on a completed and submitted application or who, through the automatic re-enrollment process, had an application submitted to a Marketplace using the HealthCare.gov platform. If determined eligible for Marketplace coverage, a new consumer still needs to pick a health plan (i.e., plan selection) and pay their premium to get covered (i.e., effectuated enrollment). Because families can submit a single application, this figure tallies the total number of people on a submitted application (rather than the total number of submitted applications).
Call Center Volume: The total number of calls received by the Federally-facilitated Marketplace call center over the course of the week covered by the snapshot.
Calls with Spanish Speaking Representative: The total number of calls received by the Federally-facilitated Marketplace call center where consumers chose to speak with a Spanish-speaking representative. These calls are not included within the Call Center Volume metric.
Average Call Center Wait Time: The average amount of time a consumer waited before reaching a customer service representative.
HealthCare.gov Users or CuidadoDeSalud.gov Users: These user metrics total how many unique users viewed or interacted with HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov, respectively, over the course of a specific date range. For cumulative totals, a separate report is run for the entire Open Enrollment period to minimize users being counted more than once during that longer range of time and to provide a more accurate estimate of unique users. Depending on an individual’s browser settings and browsing habits, a visitor may be counted as a unique user more than once.
Window Shopping HealthCare.gov Users or CuidadoDeSalud.gov Users: These user metrics total how many unique users interacted with the window-shopping tool at HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov, respectively, over the course of a specific date range. For cumulative totals, a separate report is run for the entire Open Enrollment period to minimize users being counted more than once during that longer range of time and to provide a more accurate estimate of unique users. Depending on an individual’s browser settings and browsing habits, a visitor may be counted as a unique user more than once. Users who window-shopped are also included in the total HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov user total.
Last year at the end of Open Enrollment, nearly 10 million enrolled in plans. According to KFF.org, nearly 80% on average qualify for a subsidy, assisting with premium payments in some type of fashion.
For more information on subsidy eligibly and how to get started selling ACA products in your market. Please contact Agent Pipeline at 1-800-962-4693.
