Following the conclusion of open enrollment in the Massachusetts Health Connector in mid-February, the program now looks forward to implementing a risk adjustment plan and evaluating online services.
The Health Connector, an independent state agency that helps residents find health insurance coverage and avoid tax penalties, has 145,000 registrants for its insurance plan and 36,000registrants for dental insurance, said Jason Lefferts, spokesman for the Health Connector.
“Open enrollment ended in the middle of February, [but] some people have continued to sign up[for] insurance for a variety of reasons,” he said. “The process of going onto the website and going on an application and finding out if you’re eligible for Health Connector MassHealth and picking a plan has been pretty smooth.”
People are able to apply for specific health insurance programs and purchase the plan of their choosing through the Health Connector website. Companies determine how much of a financial risk people pose based on their health and what services they need, Lefferts said. The idea of a risk adjustment plan is built into the Affordable Care Act, he said.
“The idea behind risk adjustment is basically about balancing out. Every insurance company has a group of people that they cover, and those people have different levels of risk,” he said. “What we’re doing now is we are working with the carriers to get as much information as we can from them to determine … their risk levels.”
“We’re still getting data from the carriers,” he added. “We’re still looking where that’s going to end up.”
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, which has 2.8 million members nationwide, has approximately 3,000 members enrolled through the exchange, said Blue Shield spokeswoman Sharon Torgerson.
“[Blue Cross has] mostly individual non-group buyers enrolled through the exchange,” she wrote in an email. “The vast majority of our individual and small group membership continues to buy directly from us.”
Lefferts said the Health Connector will focus on making its website more user-friendly.
“We know that we need improve our payment portal. We need to get in some functionality in the system, like putting someone on the coverage retroactively, or if they have a baby, adding someone to the policy,” he said. “We want help [members] to have as good a time with customer experience as possible, so right now that’s our top priority.”
In addition to improving services, Lefferts said the Health Connector plans to target areas in the Commonwealth with higher rates of uninsured residents before the next open enrollment period in November.
“We can really boil down to communities where those uninsured people are, and then go and really hit them hard with outreach during the next open enrollment, and capture some of the people who, for whatever reason, don’t have health insurance,” he said.
Several residents said they support the ACA and appreciate that there is a push to get more people insured in Massachusetts.
Frank Egloff, 67, of Jamaica Plain, said although he is not currently using insurance through the ACA, it is important to make it easier for people to get insured.
“I totally approve and am for it,” he said. “I support the Act, so whatever makes it happen is a good thing.”
Ashley Donovan, 23, of Allston, said that the ACA is a good idea for people who can’t have health insurance.
“If something is terribly wrong with them and they can’t pay for it, I think that they should get the healthcare that they need,” she said. “At the same time, the fact that it’s being taxed, [it’s] one more thing that we have to pay for.”
Dave Blasetti, 45, of Brighton, said that he does not believe the Act has been implemented well.
“There [are] problems with the Health Connector, in Massachusetts in particular,” he said. “I wish it was going a little bit more smoothly than it actually seems to be doing, but the idea of having everybody insured is really good.”
