Customers of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state’s largest health insurance company, have faced a rocky transition to Obamacare since the law went into effect last month.
A combination of glitches on the federal website, the company’s new billing system and the difficult weather resulted in Horizon extending its deadline for payments originally due Feb. 1.
The carrier’s Facebook page first told customers on Jan. 29 that those who purchased a policy through the federal website, www.healthcare.gov, might not have received their bills on time. The message urged those whose payments were due Feb. 1 to pay even if they hadn’t received any bill.
Over this past weekend, the company posted an updated message on its corporate home page extending the deadline for payments until today.”The mailing of your first month’s invoice may have been delayed due to severe weather and other factors,” the message stated.
The company is also apologizing for the extended hold times customers may be encountering when calling the company’s customer service line. The delays were caused by “record high call volumes.”
Although it is too soon to know how many of the new enrollees in health insurance have chosen Horizon, the company traditionally has sold the lion’s share of health insurance policies in the state.
In addition to Horizon, AmeriHealth and Health Republic of New Jersey offer policies on healthcare.gov. The plans differ in their annual deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for doctor appointments, emergency room visits, and prescriptions.
Health Republic hasn’t experienced any problems getting data about new enrollees from the federal website, according to Cynthia Jay, its spokeswoman.
AmeriHealth “is processing 100 percent of the enrollments we receive,” said spokeswoman Jill Roman. “The overall process has improved considerably.”
Horizon spokesman Tom Vincz said “file transfer issues” from the federal website left the company with insufficient information to generate an invoice for those customers who selected a policy but didn’t pay on the spot.
The affected customers were those who signed up for coverage that was to start Feb. 1.
Compounding the problem was the company’s use of a new billing and enrollment system, he said. Given the data problems, bad weather and its own internal billing system issues, the company felt it was only fair to extend the deadline.
When new enrollees select a plan through the federal website, their insurance doesn’t go into effect until they pay the first month’s premium. Once on the books, however, those who bought an unsubsidized policy through the federal marketplace have a 31-day grace period to pay their monthly premium. Those who are getting a federal subsidized policy have a three-month grace period, in part because the subsidy is presumably being paid to the insurer.
People who intend to buy private health insurance through the federal website have until Feb. 15 to get coverage that kicks in March 1. They can continue to apply after that, but their coverage won’t begin until April 1.
New Jersey’s Medicaid program, NJ FamilyCare, has been expanded to include people who may have made too much to qualify previously. Applications to that are accepted year-round.
Vincz said that while the company is still encountering problems getting “clean data” from the federal website, “those problems are waning.”
Date: February 11, 2014