Exchange Launch in 3, 2, 1. . .

Illinois’ Health Insurance Marketplace (or Exchange), which is a partnership exchange with the federal government, is scheduled to open its doors three months from today with still a great deal of work left to do on crucial consumer outreach and education. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took steps last week by launching a new and improved version of the Healthcare.gov website, which will serve as the central portal for the exchange. The re-launch also includes a new 24-hour toll-free consumer hotline and new tools and resources that aim to help consumers and small businesses navigate the new insurance marketplace when it officially opens its doors on October 1.

Illinois is expected to announce new In-Person Counselor (IPC) grantees soon, with HHS not expected to announce Navigator grants until August 15 according to a CMS timeline published in a recent GAO report. Training for the IPCs will commence this month complete with a mandatory 3-day in-person training that was developed and will be conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Federally-funded Navigators are also required to complete the training before beginning their outreach activities. (SB 1194 (Haine/Mautino) establishing certification and training criteria for in-person counselors and Navigators was officially sent to the Governor for his signature last week.)
While the initial open enrollment for the first year of the new health insurance marketplace is six months, consumer outreach and education will prove to be a Herculean task with many in the uninsured and underinsured populations – those considered to be the target audience for this law – lacking little, if any, knowledge of the changes that could help them next year. HHS has also suffered several recent setbacks with the NFL stating last week that it has no plans to help promote the ACA after the Administration reached out to several major sporting leagues to partner on marketing the benefits of the new law amongst key demographic groups.

The GAO also released a report earlier in June detailing the status of the federally-facilitated exchange and confirming what many have speculated – that there is still much work to be done before the scheduled launch date. The report notes that while CMS has completed a number of activities necessary to the establishment of the FFE by October 1, there are still a number of a steps that have to be completed, including some necessary steps that are behind schedule such as the two-month funding delay for Navigators.

Furthermore, the federal hub that is to provide electronic “real-time” access to federal data and interface with other systems to verify consumer-eligibility information is behind schedule with state and federal testing yet to take place. Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) will also not be verified by HHS until the end of this month and are not expected to be fully loaded into the marketplace portal until mid-September. As the GAO concludes in the summary of its findings, “CMS recently completed risk assessments and plans for mitigating risks associated with the data hub, and is also working on strategies to address state preparedness contingencies. Whether these efforts will assure the timely and smooth implementation of the exchanges by October 2013 cannot yet be determined.”

In other words, stay tuned. . .