On May 6, the Assembly Health Committee convened to
conduct an informational hearing on results from California’s first open
enrollment period under the new health care law. CAHU’s President-Elect,
Patrick Burns, provided testimony that underscored the unparalleled
contribution of the more than 12,000 licensed and certified agents who
successfully transitioned millions of Californians to new health plans through
Covered California and the private insurance market. Burns confirmed
Covered California’s assessment that 40% of aggregate enrollments on the
exchange were through agents, and added an additional important observation -- that
81% of all in-person enrollments through the exchange were as a result of
agents.
Agents are decidedly the largest source of enrollments in Covered California, outside of self-enrollments,
according to official data presented at
the hearing. Noting that agents received no federal or state assistance,
yet incurred considerable personal costs to achieve this level of success,
Burns stressed the need for Covered California to direct future marketing
dollars into continuing to educate the public on the key role of local licensed
and certified agents in their individual and business enrollment process.
One recurring theme among all panelists,
including CAHU, was that technical problems with Covered California’s enrollment systems and service center, and the continued backlog of Medi-Cal applications, eligibility determination gaps
between Medi-Cal and Covered California, created barriers to enrollment.
CAHU took the opportunity
to focus on two additional areas of continued agent concerns during the
hearing — bringing these important issues to the attention of the Legislature
for the first time:
1)
Agent
of Record issues – CAHU reported that it continues to work in tandem with
Covered California and carriers to attach “agent of record” to thousands of
enrollees that were submitted by agents, but still are not properly linked to
the enrollment. CAHU emphasized that agents are barred by the policies of Covered California from
servicing any client when they are not
properly listed as the assigned agent of record.
2)
Commission
payment issues –CAHU reported that the SHOP Exchange has yet to pay commissions on enrollments submitted in 2014 and that Covered
California has not supplied a date as to when this issue will be resolved.
By every measure, agents proved
that they were the most efficient and cost-effective means of delivering
in-person health insurance enrollment. The final initial enrollment
numbers released by Covered California concludes that 8 out of every 10
in-person enrollments were provided by agents. What remains to be
seen is the percentage of initial enrollments that “adhere” or stay on the
books. I can confidently predict that the percentage of initial
enrollments that actually pay their first premiums and continue paying their
premiums will be far higher in the agent enrollment pool than anywhere
else. Enrollments delivered by agents yield clients who understand what
they purchased and how to use it.
Once again, there is little doubt “Agents Are the Answer”!
Until next week,
Sam