First Oregon told Oracle to go pound sand after paying the company hundreds of millions of dollars for a useless website; now Nevada has officially done the same thing to Xerox:
The Silver State Health Insurance Exchange board voted unanimously Tuesday to end its relationship with Xerox, the vendor contracted in 2012 to build the exchange’s Nevada Health Link website.
In place of Xerox, the exchange will adopt the federal Healthcare.gov exchange’s eligibility and enrollment functions for the sign-up period that begins Nov. 15, though it will keep its status and funding as a state-controlled system. The exchange will also issue a request for proposals to evaluate replacement systems in coming years. A new platform could come from a state with a functional marketplace, or from a vendor with a similar, proven program.
Unlike Massachusetts, which is taking a dual-path approach (they're scrambling to replace their own crappy site with a new one while simultaneously preparing to move over to HC.gov just in case the first plan doesn't pan out in time), Nevada is sort of doing the opposite: They're moving over to HC.gov this year, but reserving the right to try a do-over on their own exchange for 2016 and beyond.
Nevada is the only exchange still officially open for "normal" private QHP enrollments (although of course SHOP, Medicaid, etc. are all year-round). WIth this update, Nevada's paid QHP rate jumps from 71% up to 76% (still not great, but an impressive spike in one week...more the existing enrollees catching up with their payments than new ones being added):
The board overseeing Nevada Health Link was told Thursday that nearly 35,000 people had enrolled in a qualified health plan as of May 3, halfway through a two-month special enrollment period that ends May 30.
Another 11,000 have selected plans but not yet paid for them.
Managers believe they had QHP enrollment information and premium payments for 34,820 residents as of May 3.
Nevada is one of the few states extending their open enrollment beyond the "standard" 4/15 deadline; residents have until 5/30 to complete their enrollments for 2014:
Update as of 4/19: 45,291 Consumers have selected Qualified Health Plans, 32,365 have paid.
I think this is the first Nevada update I've posted which didn't come from the Nevada Health Link's Twitter feed. Technically only 28,208 have actually paid their first premium so far, but another 4,332 have scheduled their payment which is certainly a huge step ahead of having "enrolled but not even arranged for a payment" (and my model has 7% of this total being lopped out for potential non-payment anyway). So, 32,540 it is until further notice.
And the number of people who enrolled in and paid for a qualified health plan through the exchange hit 28,208 on April 5, up from 25,899 people on March 31. Another 4,332 consumers have scheduled payments.
700K to 1.3M Additional Medicaid Enrollees through March, If Current Trends Continue.
However, March and April figures could bring more dramatic increases if outreach and enrollment efforts targeting the end of exchange open enrollment translate into new Medicaid enrollees. Specifically, if Medicaid sign-ups follow a similar pattern as exchanges, new Medicaid enrollees could reach 4.3 million by the end of March. In addition, recent figures released by CMS do not account for individuals assessed eligible for Medicaid through HealthCare.gov who have yet to be determined eligible by states.
Why the heck Nevada couldn't have posted the 3/31 total instead of tacking on 4/1, I have no idea, but what the hell; it's starting to look like I'll have to wait for the HHS report in order to get the precise monthly figure anyway (assuming they don't move the 30th & 31st over to April's report, that is...)
Update as of 4/1: 41,823 Nevadans confirm Qualified Health Plan Selections through http://t.co/k2YKIcssBl. 25,899 paid to date.
OK, in addition to the appx. 7.041 million enrollments on the Federal exchange (HC.gov), I've brought CO, CT, DC, HI, KY, MD, MN, NY, RI and WA completely up to date, with all QHP data through midnight on 3/31 (some of the Medicaid/CHIP data is still missing, but that's a lesser concern at the moment).
However, I'm still missing the following exchange QHP data:
California: 22 hours (that's right...the current tally runs thru 2am on 3/31)
Massachusetts: 3 days (current is thru 3/28)
Nevada: 2 days (current is thru 3/29)
Oregon: 3 days (current is thru 3/28)
Vermont: 1 day (current is thru 3/30)
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be this close to full data while still missing it.
So, how much is actually missing? Well, if these states were running at their prior average March daily rate, it would be
CA: 11,754
MA: 512 x 3 = 1,536
NV: 427 x 2 = 854
OR: 502 x 3 = 1,506
VT: 775
Total: 16,425
However, this obviously doesn't apply since the final weekend and especially yesterday were insane.
Nevada doesn't want to be left out of the craziness...OK, not exactly a major update but every one of those numbers is a human being (and one step closer to 7M)...about 4,500 more (although most of the new ones aren't paid yet...imagine that! They enrolled 2 days ago and still haven't paid? The horror!)
Update as of 3/29: A busy weekend for enrollment, 40,498 consumers confirmed Qualified Health Plan selections, 24,062 have paid. #GetCovered
