Politico is reporting an "enrollment surge" on Healthcare.gov. According to "an official familiar with the program," the website enrolled 29,000 people in private health insurance plans on Sunday and Monday, the first two days of December. That's more people than enrolled in the entire month of October. And by my back-of-the envelope math, it means Healthcare.gov is now enrolling people at 38% of the pace needed to reach the administration's goal of 7 million signups by March 31. That's not fast enough, but it's a marked improvement over the last two months (October's enrollment pace was 3% of what's necessary) and it's reason to hope that further improvements will be enough to prevent problems of low enrollment.
Wisconsin legislators on Wednesday approved delaying by three months a plan to shift thousands of people from a state Medicaid program onto the federal health insurance marketplace, which has been plagued by technical problems. The Republican-led Assembly voted 64-32 to approve a proposal that would allow 72,000 people due to be shifted from Wisconsin's BadgerCare Medicaid program on January 1 to stay on until the end of March. Republican Governor Scott Walker sought the delay. The majority Republican state Senate could vote on the delay later in December.
Every week, usually on Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sends state Medicaid departments something called a "flat file." These files are sort of similar to the much-discussed 834 transmissions, which the exchange sends to an insurance plan when someone signs up. Except the flat files are for the Medicaid program, and lists people that the exchange thinks -- but hasn't officially determined -- will be eligible for the Medicaid program. And, much like the those 834 transmissions, Medicaid officials say, these flat files are riddled with errors and incomplete information.
President Obama urged a group of young activists Wednesday not to give up on promoting his signature health-care law, as enrollment picked up on HealthCare.gov. Roughly 27,000 Americans signed up for insurance on the federal exchange on Tuesday, according to internal figures, bringing the site's three-day enrollment total to 56,000. That figure is more than double the number who enrolled online in the entire month of October, which was almost 27,000. Buoyed by the Web site's improved performance, Obama and his aides have been touting the importance of signing up for plans before Dec. 23, the deadline for obtaining insurance scheduled to start Jan. 1.
A New Hampshire hospital executive said Wednesday he is being denied access to information about why his facility was excluded from the Affordable Care Act's provider network for individuals, but the state insurance department said it is still sorting out what it can release. Al Felgar, president of Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, is fighting Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Hampshire's decision to exclude his hospital from its network for those purchasing individual policies. He asked the insurance department last month for a hearing on the matter and for documents Anthem submitted to the state when seeking approval for the network.
In healthcare IT security, there are lots of villains to contend with, but the heroes also deserve attention. The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) is among several that come to mind. NYeC's stated goal is simple enough: Improve the healthcare of all New Yorkers through the creation of the statewide health information network for New York, an endeavor they call SHIN-NY. In reviewing the numerous data breaches that have plagued US hospitals and practices, one of the missteps that surfaces over and over among offending providers is the unwillingness to do a detailed risk assessment before their records were breached.