CMS Conference Call: Liveblog!

The CMS Dept. is holding a conference call with reporters right now. I'll be liveblogging the call and posting updates as quickly as I can for any useful info. It should focus much on the enrollment numbers, of course, but also how well the HC.gov servers held up under yesterday's strain, and I'd expect a lot of discussion of the "autorenewal" issue--how many, how it'll be handled and so forth.

Participants: Lori Lodes, Kevin Counihan & Andy Slavitt

3:04pm: Call hasn't started yet, but HHS just releaced their 4th week enrollment data for HC.gov (thru 12/12)...and it's actually 5.4% higher than I thought! (thanks to Bob Herman for the tip!)

• My estimate: 2.32 million
• Actual: 2,446,562
• still 52% renewals / 48% new

Call starting:

• first 8 hours: 20K applications
• last 3 days: more than 3 million unique site visitors
• As of Friday midnight: 2.467M plans selected

RENEWALS: (Andy Slavitt)

• 90-day renewal process: 
• First 30 days: Manual renewals/updates/re-enrollments
• Over next few days, autorenewal group will receive notifications regarding autorenewals, given option to come back in and shop around/etc.
• So far, over 4 million calls to call center (30 days); 1.6 million over past 3 days alone; everything has run pretty smoothly
• 500K people left names towards end of yesterday re callbacks for January 1st coverage!
• No capacity restraints yesterday
• 125K concurrent users at peak yesterday
• "waiting room" average wait time was only 3 minutes or so yesterday before getting in
• AUTORENEWAL policies:
• Pilot program to test it out
• Contacting issuers (insurance co's) to get them all info necessary re. autorenewals

AUTORENEWALS: KEVIN COUNIHAN:

• "Switchers" (switching from one insurance co. to another)
• "missing plan information" (outreach campaign to help them get a different plan)
• pilot program for autorenewals: 1) make sure the architecture works; 2) make sure the 834 file transfer process works with insurance companies; it went quite well

Q&A:

• Q: how many were impacted yesterday by not being able to get through?
• A: Call center "several hundred thousand people" (500K above??) being called back today/next few days
• Over 1 million calls yesterday alone
• Q: Elaborate on "cross walking" system for discontinued plans
• A: Less than 5% impacted; if issuer has dropped plan or dropped off exchange completely, 1st replacement would be closest equivalent plan offered by same issuer in same metal level
• If enrollee wants to switch to a different plan they can do so but the different plan won't kick in until Feb. 1st
• Algorythm which will switch them to the closest plan available
• If not available, they'll contact enrollee directly (repeatedly) to discuss options
• Q: Sarah Kliff: State-based exchanges (stole my question)!
• A: Nope.
• Q: Tami Luhby: Out of 6.7M, how many on HC.gov?
• A: Breakout will be included in monthly report
• NEXT WEEK will include ALL reenrollment data
• Q: Any info on "switchers"?
• A: (missed answer, sorry)
• Q: State-by-state breakouts??
• A: ASPE report will be out soon
• Q: Permanent residents/(citizenship/immigration/legal eligibility issues) receiving faulty information re eligibility?
• A: Need more info; call centers given very specific accurate data for talking to people.
• Q: Dan Mangan: What hasn't gone well?
• A: (missed answer)
• Q: Call center: 1M calls, 500K callbacks? 40 min etc on hold?
• A: 500K was over full weekend (out of 1.6M total calls); those 500K were at least able to get thru & leave contact info/etc, WILL receive callbacks
• Q: Even with all the outreach, what about the people who still have no clue & will freak out in January at rate increases/etc?
• A: Still have until 2/15 to make changes/switches/drop coverage
• Q: Verification system for income / immigration / legal status working?
• A: yup.
• Q: Further bumps/issues with autorenewals?
• A: yep, but we're prepared.
• Q: Special Enrollment Period (those who's autorenewal is glitchy/etc) numbers?
• A: Small number but don't have exact (makes since since it's just being started now)
• Q: What % of current HC.gov have manually renewed thru yesterday?
• MY answer: 1.27M of HC.gov enrollees have manually renewed thru 12/12 (out of...perhaps 5M or so via HC.gov???) 

END OF CALL

(sigh) dammit, I didn't get to ask a question again...although Sarah Kliff kind of stole my original one...