mountainsoft
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
It was supposed to be easy... My wife's employer healthcare would end, and we would sign up with a new plan through the ACA marketplace. I researched more than a year in advance so I would be prepared when the time came. Of course, nothing ever goes as planned.
As per the Washington health plan finder web site, we signed up within 60 days of our income change (we tried about 45 days early). Right out of the gate we were denied coverage because she was still working, even though we specified on the application that she was retiring at the end of April and existing coverage would end. They also started the coverage in April, when we wanted it to start in May. The new estimate was nearly $2000 per month, causing both of us to panic since my wife had already given notice at work and there was no way we could afford that.
After chatting with customer support, we waited till April to apply again so the new plan would start in May (starts the month after you apply, despite what the web site said). Unfortunately, since we're living off of savings between April and September when my wife's pension begins, it put our yearly income below the ACA minimum level for 2023. This meant we were placed on the state's extended Medicaid program instead. Odd, but okay, except they kept sending emails requesting income verification leaving us wondering if we were accepted or not. We finally received our new healthcare cards last week, so as far as we know, we're good to go for now.
Of course, one of my prescriptions is running low, but the refill date was May 2nd and our insurance was running out at the end of April. Or so we thought. I contacted my doc asking for an early refill, only to find out my insurance had already been cancelled. It should have been good till the end of April, but I guess my wife giving plenty of notice back in March worked against us. So I still need to figure out what to do about that.
After contacting the medicaid plan I was able to reassign our existing Kaiser doctors to medicaid. But we won't get our new cards for another 10 days and I still don't know how we actually handle the billing situation, since Kaiser said my insurance was cancelled (Medicaid started Apr 1st?).
There were several other minor issues, but those are some of the sticking points. Far from the easy transition I had envisioned. Then we'll have to go through it all again in eight months when my wife's full year pension will put us above the medicaid income and we'll have to shop for an ACA plan again. What a messy system.
Oh, and the income portion of the application was a mess. They insisted on a monthly average, which was awkward to calculate. Four months of employed income, four months of no income (living off savings), and four months of pension. Our plan didn't exactly work with their system, despite them converting it back to annual income at the end of the application. It's obviously designed for people with a single income stream. Not very flexible.
In any case, next Friday is my wife's last day of work and we're slowly working through the various small details. We're both excited but hangups like these don't provide much confidence for a big leap we're already nervous about.
As per the Washington health plan finder web site, we signed up within 60 days of our income change (we tried about 45 days early). Right out of the gate we were denied coverage because she was still working, even though we specified on the application that she was retiring at the end of April and existing coverage would end. They also started the coverage in April, when we wanted it to start in May. The new estimate was nearly $2000 per month, causing both of us to panic since my wife had already given notice at work and there was no way we could afford that.
After chatting with customer support, we waited till April to apply again so the new plan would start in May (starts the month after you apply, despite what the web site said). Unfortunately, since we're living off of savings between April and September when my wife's pension begins, it put our yearly income below the ACA minimum level for 2023. This meant we were placed on the state's extended Medicaid program instead. Odd, but okay, except they kept sending emails requesting income verification leaving us wondering if we were accepted or not. We finally received our new healthcare cards last week, so as far as we know, we're good to go for now.
Of course, one of my prescriptions is running low, but the refill date was May 2nd and our insurance was running out at the end of April. Or so we thought. I contacted my doc asking for an early refill, only to find out my insurance had already been cancelled. It should have been good till the end of April, but I guess my wife giving plenty of notice back in March worked against us. So I still need to figure out what to do about that.
After contacting the medicaid plan I was able to reassign our existing Kaiser doctors to medicaid. But we won't get our new cards for another 10 days and I still don't know how we actually handle the billing situation, since Kaiser said my insurance was cancelled (Medicaid started Apr 1st?).
There were several other minor issues, but those are some of the sticking points. Far from the easy transition I had envisioned. Then we'll have to go through it all again in eight months when my wife's full year pension will put us above the medicaid income and we'll have to shop for an ACA plan again. What a messy system.
Oh, and the income portion of the application was a mess. They insisted on a monthly average, which was awkward to calculate. Four months of employed income, four months of no income (living off savings), and four months of pension. Our plan didn't exactly work with their system, despite them converting it back to annual income at the end of the application. It's obviously designed for people with a single income stream. Not very flexible.
In any case, next Friday is my wife's last day of work and we're slowly working through the various small details. We're both excited but hangups like these don't provide much confidence for a big leap we're already nervous about.