Health Insurance Marketplace — What’s Contributing to the 2016 Enrollment Growth?

On December 22, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a snapshot report of the Health Insurance Marketplace Open Enrollment, capturing Marketplace enrollment from the beginning of Open Enrollment (November 1) through December 19 (Week 7 of Open Enrollment) for consumers who signed up for health coverage through the Healthcare.gov platform. Not accounting for the millions more selecting plans through State-based Marketplaces (SBMs):

• More than 8.2 million consumers signed up for healthcare coverage — 28% more than enrollment a year prior.
• Approximately 29% (about 2.4 million) are new consumers, while 71% are consumers renewing coverage.
• New consumers are over one-third higher than the number of new consumers who signed up by the deadline for January 1 coverage last year.
• More than 4 million people made plan selections between December 13 and December 19, which represents almost 50% of the cumulative Open Enrollment plan selections through December 19, 2015.

So what is contributing to the positive enrollment growth in the 2016 Health Insurance Marketplace?

While it is normal to see higher consumer demands during the weeks leading up to the January 1 effective coverage deadline, there are some other factors which may be contributing to the enrollment trends.

1. Automatic renewal process — As part of the Federally-facilitated Marketplace (FFM) auto-enrollment process, generally, if consumers do nothing, they will be auto-enrolled in the same plan with the same premium tax credit and other financial assistance, if applicable, as the prior plan year. This provides consumers with a simple, familiar process to renew their coverage.
2. Broker guidance and training— CMS is providing more guidance and instructional tips to brokers on how to engage consumers and simplify the consumer enrollment experience. This can been seen in:
   1. the numerous broker training sessions CMS hosted going into Open Enrollment,
   2. CMS provided enrollment tools such as the “Marketplace Application Checklist” brokers can use to help consumers prepare to complete their applications on Healthcare.gov,
   3. a new “For Agents and Brokers” link has been added at Healthcare.gov, making it easier for agents and brokers to get to the Agents and Brokers Resources webpage (http://go.cms.gov/CCIIOAB),
   4. and consumer research shared with brokers showing what drives consumers to take action.
   5. Customer awareness — The first Health Insurance Marketplace Open Enrollment period was longer than in future years in order to give consumers a chance to understand their options and make a selection (in addition to allowing further opportunity to beneficiaries impacted by hiccups in FFM enrollment functionality to complete enrollment). As we enter the 2016 plan year, enrollment processes and functionality are not only tighter, renewing beneficiaries are now more familiar with how to research coverage options and avenues in which they can enroll.

With Open Enrollment coming closer to the end, extremely high traffic is anticipated on Healthcare.gov specifically on the January 15 cut-off date.

CMS will continue to release snapshot reports for the Healthcare.gov platform throughout Open Enrollment. It is anticipated more detailed reports which look at plan selections across the FFM and SBM will be released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) later in the Open Enrollment period.

For more Open Enrollment Trends:

https://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2015-Fact-sheets-items/2015-12-22.html

Resources

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