The state and federal websites for health insurance enrollment faced minor hiccups this weekend as the healthcare reform law's online marketplaces kicked off open enrollment for the second year of coverage.
Washington's Healthplanfinder went down twice over the weekend and was restored at 4 a.m. PST on Monday. The downtime was prompted by two issues. The first was caused by what the exchange described as a “blip” from vendor eHealth, which provides plan data from the exchanges. Later, the exchanges' quality-control team caught that the site was miscalculating consumers' 2015 tax-credit information and eligibility. Officials said that fewer than 950 consumers were affected and that each of them would be contacted.
A spokeswoman for the Washington exchange said that evening maintenance is “routine” and that officials don't expect the tax-credit issues to be persistent. Issues regarding eHealth, however, were still under investigation.
Some consumers were having trouble logging into the system because they struggled to recall usernames and passwords. The system allows them, however, to recover usernames and reset passwords using the e-mail address associated with the account.
There's a simple solution, the CMS said. If users have difficulty remembering their username, they can simply use the e-mail address associated with their accounts to discover their e-mail address. “Account creation and login has been smooth for the vast majority of new consumers and those coming back for the first time since last year,” a spokesman said. “In fact, there were more than a half million successful log-ins Saturday.” Call center workers were often able to sort out any issues that surfaced, he added.
Dan Schuyler, senior director of exchange technology at consultancy Leavitt Partners, said some additional confusion may have been introduced by an April request from the CMS to reset passwords, which some consumers received but others didn't. Still, even in that instance consumers can reset their passwords if they forget them.
“I would call this a very minor issue and think most consumers experiencing the password reset issue will get this resolved quickly,” Schulyer said.
Follow Darius Tahir on Twitter: @dariustahir
