Renewing on CoveredCA for 2015 results in immediate policy cancelation

[photoguy]

My wife renewed her policy on CoveredCA two weeks ago for 2015 and we were a bit surprised to find that this resulted in her current policy being canceled. I.e. no coverage for december.

Our only warning was that BlueShield did not withdraw the monthly premium for december. There was no letter or other notification.

Based on what some others have reported, I'm guessing that when we renewed on CoveredCA (slightly different plan but with same insurer) they mistakenly told BlueShield to cancel her current policy leaving a gap until 2015. We do not know for sure though.

Currently on the phone trying to straighten this out.

 

[photoguy]

TLDR; If you switch plans on covered CA for 2015 make sure they don't immediately terminate your current insurance causing a coverage gap.



After a few calls to BlueShield and CoveredCA I think we have this cleared-up (hopefully). What happened was that when DW went to renew her coverage for 2015, CoveredCA sent a notification to BlueShield to cancel her current insurance immediately. This left her without coverage since mid november.

CoveredCA had no explanation for why they canceled her current insurance (perhaps it was an automated process that got triggered because she switched plans instead of continuing on her current plan). The phone rep who helped her renew did not mention anything about her current coverage being canceled and they sent no notifications.

BlueShield, whom we called first, would not reinstate her insurance without getting CoveredCA to fix this on their end and generate an "incident number". Seems to me that it would be legally questionable to just cancel someone's insurance without any notification or waiting period but there's not much one can do after escalating to a manager.

CoveredCA was able to flip the right bits to fix the problem but that involved waiting on hold to get a service representative. This time it was only 30 minute wait time and perhaps another 30 minutes for them to fix it. We then had to call BlueShield to update them and reestablish billing.

We didn't need any medical services in this 2-week period. I suppose if we had generated claims BlueShield would have covered them but I think it probably would have involved considerable time on the phone straightening it out.

 

[Helen]

Wow, that is one scary glitch. I am glad you guys noticed it.

My COBRA expires in two weeks. I went through the cover Oregon system for December 2014. They supposedly sent me information through the mail twice but I never received it. The phone support was good. I haven't paid my premium yet, I am waiting for an invoice number. Kaiser confirmed that I am in their system. I started this process in early October.

I used the healthcare.gov website for 2015 coverage. I had something wrong with my application and used phone support twice. Both were very helpful. I ended up deleting the application and starting over to resolve the problem. The only thing I have left to do is pay for the premium and provide proof of income for 2015.

It is stressful to set this stuff up. It feels like a big black box. The thought of going even a day without health insurance is a very frightening thought.

 

[rodi]

That is very scary, Photoguy.

If it makes you feel better - I had my insurance cancelled without notice TWICE by my previous employer... Once while on maternity leave. (Discovered when I went in for the 2week well baby visit. HR's computer decided I wasn't paying premiums, even though I had prepaid them ahead of time. The other time they did it was when I relocated states (same company) - my premiums were being deducted from my pay - but my insurance wasn't be paid - so the insurer dropped me with no notice.

It's not just CoveredCA.... And notice seems to be not required.

 

[wolf]

My wife renewed her policy on CoveredCA two weeks ago for 2015 and we were a bit surprised to find that this resulted in her current policy being canceled. I.e. no coverage for december.

Our only warning was that BlueShield did not withdraw the monthly premium for december. There was no letter or other notification.

Based on what some others have reported, I'm guessing that when we renewed on CoveredCA (slightly different plan but with same insurer) they mistakenly told BlueShield to cancel her current policy leaving a gap until 2015. We do not know for sure though.

Currently on the phone trying to straighten this out.

Glad you seemed to have it solve. 2014, also had Blue Shield thru
Covered CA. Long story short. Had many, many, many, phone calls to
both Covered CA and blue shield to fix many, many, errors, and miscommunications.

ACA, great when it works, many hours on hold, and follow up phone calls when it does not work

 

[photoguy]

It is stressful to set this stuff up. It feels like a big black box. The thought of going even a day without health insurance is a very frightening thought.

I'm pretty risk tolerant about some things but finding out this morning that my wife was not covered made me very nervous (needless to say I also have umbrella and renters/homeowners insurance). I felt like we had to stop everything else to get this taken care of asap (much like a work crisis).

I was hoping that that CoveredCA would be better as this is the second open enrollment period but it actual seems worse to me than before.

That is very scary, Photoguy.

If it makes you feel better - I had my insurance cancelled without notice TWICE by my previous employer... Once while on maternity leave. (Discovered when I went in for the 2week well baby visit. HR's computer decided I wasn't paying premiums, even though I had prepaid them ahead of time. The other time they did it was when I relocated states (same company) - my premiums were being deducted from my pay - but my insurance wasn't be paid - so the insurer dropped me with no notice.

It's not just CoveredCA.... And notice seems to be not required.

Wow that's terrible. I wonder about the people who program these systems -- it doesn't seem they believe in the concept of testing or having any sort of checkpoints.

 

[iac1003]

The worst (although it could have ended up much worse) was when I left Federal employment and we went on COBRA. The Feds have a 30 day grace period under which you are still covered under your old plan and then COBRA starts. But that 30 day grace period doesn't show up in their computer system. A billing department would have to call in order to confirm the insurance coverage.

Wouldn't you know it but DH was hospitalized for pulmonary emboli 2 weeks into the grace period and it took about 9 months to straighten out that we really had health insurance during that month. This included my going into the hospital business office twice to explain the situation, to no avail. For 2 years we got EOBs saying they were billing Medicare (which was DH's secondary insurance). Sometimes we were asked to pay money back that they already collected saying we weren't really insured during that month. I can't recall the number of phone calls. The customer service person for the Federal plan took pity on me after many months and so many phone calls, and arranged a 3 way call between herself, me and the hospital billing supervisor to finally settle it.

This was all pre-ACA. How could it be worse now?


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum