A Referral who Knows It All

[RayNY]

Everyone has those clients, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" as my parents used to say.

I had a client contact me, 90% done with enrollment, but hung up in the portal. Had already evaluated plans, called their doctors to see what they accept, and had chosen a plan. I walked them through adding me as a broker, straightened it all out, got them on the plan they wanted, at the subsidy they wanted, with the effective date they wanted. (Moral of the story, it was a household size/income eligibility issue, no biggie.)

Get a call now that they can use it, to let me know none of their doctors accept the plan they chose. I can't tell you how many times I asked for their doctors, asked to "just check", etc, just to be assured that they are positive. Turns out, they're not on the "new" network, and they were asking by carrier, not network.

 

[cadylou]

What a mess. So far, I've stayed with mainly "off-exchange" sales of 2014 plans. No problems there. Only had a couple where I've actually gone through the "on-exchange" process with them & they've put in my FFM and NPN, but then trying to verify with the carrier that the information is actually there & my data is with the application to identify me, as their agent, is a different story. BCBS gets a daily data feed, and so far one of these clients hasn't shown up yet. The client has confirmation that his enrollment is complete from Healthcare.gov, but the carrier doesn't know why he's not showing up. They think they may have had "back end data issues" but can't identify if records were lost or not. Anyone else have this issue?

 

[RayNY]

cadylou,

Every carrier in every state has different issues with the same result....

It's a week in, and I can't tell you how many dozens of calls we've had about not being billed, not getting an invoice, not having an ID number, not getting a card, hospitals telling them they're not covered, etc. There's more issues and complaints than I can list. Every carrier is having issues, this is something they never had to deal with before for the most part. The whole system is untested and we're the guinea pigs.

Yes, some carriers are taking it like champs and getting it done, but no one is 100% across the board.

 

[cadylou]

What about people like one of my former clients who tells me with her subsidy, she now has $0 premium. How will they know they have coverage? I guess if a card arrives magically?

 

[Bob_The_Insurance_Guy]

Wait! It gets better...

We ran into issues filing under my name first, and when we could go no further, entered a different ACA application under Martin’s name.
The ACA uses Experian to verify information. We froze our credit histories long ago, and so unfreezing Experian became the problem. We had the codes to unfreeze our accounts, but it seems that somewhere there is a mismatch on the last digit of my SSN. Experian unlocked my info for ACA, but I can’t go back and correct a typo in the application (if it is in my application) . Nor will anyone at ACA confirm my suspicion – the tech I spoke with couldn’t get into my application form, either. The possible typo source came to light after a long conversation with Experian, trying to find out why my application wasn’t advancing after unfreezing the security. I spoke with 3 Experian staffers and only one spotted an inconsistency!

So we started over, filing under Martin’s name, and using what we knew from my initial application, we succeeded. God help those who have never worked through technical issues to correct minor but fatal errors. I’m certain they are legion.

 

[houcoogster]

Oh My God, that family has to be charter members in the moron society! The few young people I've reluctantly worked for over the past 12 years in the health business have been huge pains. The B.S. they have/are put me through wasn't worth a 100% commission, let alone 10%-30%.

AC you hit the nail on head Bro!

I have had my share of nutty customers over the years but this one beats all of them hands down.

 

[Bob_The_Insurance_Guy]

But wait! There's more...!

[FONT=Times New Roman,serif][FONT=Calibri,sans-serif]Bob[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,serif][FONT=Calibri,sans-serif]We seem to have fallen into some ACA hole.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,serif][FONT=Calibri,sans-serif]ACA says our enrollment was complete on 12/24/2013. Kaiser says they don’t have our application. They think we were rolled over from the conversion plan to a Kaiser Gold Plan (by them).[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,serif][FONT=Calibri,sans-serif] [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,serif][FONT=Calibri,sans-serif]We’ve complained to the ACA which said we’d hear in a few days. Our last complaint was Monday 1/13. Still no word. Soon I will have to contact Kaiser to correct us to the desired Bronze plan, but I fear we will lose the ACA subsidy and 1/1/14 enrollment date ( and our money).[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,serif][FONT=Calibri,sans-serif] [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,serif][FONT=Calibri,sans-serif]Any ideas?

You can't make this stuff up.

[/FONT][/FONT]

 

[houcoogster]

That's hilarious....ACA Hole...lol

Hey Bob go ahead and invest a few hours unraveling this birds nest and in turn I will make sure you get a check for $20 in..............April

 

[Bob_The_Insurance_Guy]

And the dance continues...

As of now both Kaiser and ACA agree we are enrolled as of 12/24/2013, with a start date of 1/1/2014. Now we need to receive a paper bill (from Kaiser) in order to pay. But wait, there’s a deadline for payment… Will our ACA bill arrive before it’s due, and will we be able to pay it AND have it credited to us before the deadline? Fat chance.