HIX Fate Tied to Payers' Education Initiatives

The deadline to buy insurance for 2014 on the public health insurance exchanges is March 31. Reaching out to the uninsured and convincing them to enroll is a make-or-break effort for the hallmark federal healthcare reform program.

With the troubled rollout of the healthcare.gov website and a range of other post-launch challenges, educating potential public exchange enrollees has become a focal point for federal officials and insurers.

Last week during a conference call featuring the January enrollment numbers for the public exchanges nationwide, HHS spokesperson Julie Bataille said federal officials have been organizing outreach activities across the country for months. The effort has resulted in about 2,000 public education events since October.

Outreach work has been intense in states where there is a high percentage of previously uninsured residents, Bataille said. "There's a lot of work we are doing to raise awareness in Texas in particular," she said. "We are very [committed] that the people of Texas are aware of the options that are available."

During the conference call, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced 3.1 million people had enrolled for health insurance in the public exchanges through the end of January. Last June, Sebelius said enrolling seven million people through the public exchanges was a "realistic target."

The deadline to enroll for 2014 health insurance in the public exchanges is March 31, so reaching Sebelius' target is probably unrealistic at this point.

Humana Finds Local Outreach Partners
Roy Beveridge, MD, Humana's chief medical officer, told me last week that the company is engaged in a nationwide educational effort to boost enrollment in its exchange-based insurance policies. "Humana has committed to providing health reform education for Humana members and non-members alike through the development of strategic partnerships that work to eliminate confusion and provide people with the information they need to make informed, individualized decisions," Beveridge wrote in an email. "Our goal is to make health care easy, so we're going out to communities and giving people the tools and education they need to understand their healthcare options."

Humana's educational partners include CVS Caremark and the YMCA.

"The opportunity is to provide coverage to people who didn't have it before," John Montgomery, MD, Humana's chief medical officer in Florida, told me recently. "A lot of people don't know: don't know what to do; don't know what benefits are available."

Montgomery says CVS Caremark and the YMCA are natural outreach partners for Humana in Florida. "Where the YMCA sites are mirrors our market," he said. "Those partnerships give us opportunities to educate people about health insurance."

In Mississippi, Humana is orchestrating a 36-county push to educate residents about the new public exchange, according to Stacey Carter, who is leading the company's Mississippi Education Initiative. "A lot of people feel the ACA is for the less fortunate," Carter told me last week. "We are trying to get people the numbers for who can benefit from the ACA, and there are a lot of people who can benefit."

Carter said the outreach effort is essential because many Mississippi residents have never had health insurance before. "A lot of these people have never used the system before," she said.

In Mississippi, Buses Campaign for Enrollment
A unique element of Humana's Mississippi Education Initiative is a pair of Internet-equipped buses that have logged more than 10,000 miles since October crisscrossing the state. The buses have visited rural areas and they have set up at a variety of locations, from churches and libraries to Walmart stores. "These vehicles are being used to reach people in their community," Carter told me. "It's helped with Humana's brand awareness as well. People are getting to know Humana."

Carter said outreach techniques such as the buses are effective because they create an opportunity to have the kind of one-on-one contact that is needed for many residents to navigate the options available to them through the new public exchanges. "You really need to sit down and have a personal conversation with people," she said. "Even though the enrollment deadline is March 31, we're still going out to educate people this summer."

With millions of Americans eligible for affordable healthcare for the first time in their lives, there are millions of reasons for public exchange outreach efforts to continue aggressively.