Online tool eases Obamacare enrollment

John Gellert had health insurance for the first time last year.

The self-employed Juniata resident qualified for a tax credit subsidy on the Affordable Care Act marketplace and bought Independence Blue Cross' silver tier Keystone HMO Proactive plan.

He liked the plan and was ready to renew last month when he was told that he no longer qualified for a marketplace subsidy because his income was below the $16,105 federal poverty level.

The marketplace representative "asked a series of questions and that's when I knew that I didn't qualify," said Gellert, 57. "That's when I said I need to look to see what I qualify for."

The deadline to have insurance for Feb. 1 is Thursday. Open enrollment for individual plans under Obamacare ends on Feb. 15.

His online searching led Gellert to the Pennsylvania Health Access Network's website (pahealthaccess.org/GetHelp). There he found an Enroll America tool called Connector. Following a few simple directions, he was able to schedule an appointment with an in-person assistor (a navigator or certified application counselor) at a public library near his home.

With the assistor's help, Gellert enrolled in Healthy Pennsylvania, the state's Medicaid expansion plan. Connector "showed you which locations they had and you checked to see which dates were available," Gellert said. "It was user-friendly."

Making the tool easy to use was a key goal for Enroll America, a nonprofit whose goal is to get Americans covered by health insurance.

"The approach we really took with the tool was that we are going to keep it as streamlined as possible," said Adam Stalker, Enroll's national digital director. "There isn't a whole lot of opportunity to get lost in the process." About 20,000 people have gotten appointments through the service.

Connector is really the merger of two ideas. Last year, Enroll had a "fairly simple" search by zip code that helped people find a nearby navigator or certified counselor. Meanwhile, a partner in North Carolina was using an 800 number for people to make appointments.

"We decided that it made a lot of sense to merge those tools into a single national enterprise style solution for both consumers and assistors," Stalker said.

The need for a Connector-like tool became obvious after last year's open enrollment. Enroll's research showed that 60 percent of those who got health insurance had help from an in-person assistor. The group "really wanted to double down on the in-person help" this year.

Work on Connector began in June. The group already had some valuable information because during the first open enrollment, it had conducted "lots of consumer experience tests" on its site. The group had over one million consumer e-mail addresses and sent as many people to assistors via its locator tool as it did to the marketplace.

It also solicited input from its partners across the country - from state groups like PHAN to national ones like Planned Parenthood - and incorporated more recommendations into the tool.

Connector underwent "some lightweight beta testing" by users. It had to stand up to heavy traffic, unlike another insurance website, the federal healthcare.gov, that famously crumbled at launch.

The tool launched Nov. 15, the first day of open enrollment. "Overall we are hearing very, very good things," Stalker said.

To use Connector, all consumers must enter is their name, zip code, phone number, and e-mail address. A list of locations - usually churches, malls, libraries, and community centers - appears on the screen in a five-, 10-, or 20-mile radius. When the consumer selects a location, a list of open time slots pops up. The next step is to schedule an appointment.

Stalker said that roughly two-thirds of the people scheduled through Connector show up for their appointment, a rate ten percent higher than for people using other scheduling methods.

An added benefit of Connector is that it helps assistors track information they must report to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which oversees the law. At a glance, assistors can tell if a person enrolled, if they bought a marketplace plan, and whether they were eligible for Medicaid expansion.

Connector also notes which consumers didn't sign up and why they were not successful.

There are 30 Enroll America partners using Connector at 3,000 locations across the U.S., including 100 in Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia, the tool has helped 124 residents make an appointment.

"Most of our appointments with Connector are usually pretty full," said Antoinette Kraus, director of PHAN. "It's a great tool."

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