Tips for completing your ACA application

Time is running out to complete required enrollments for the Affordable Care Act before open enrollment ends March 31. Here are some tips that may help.

Problem No. 1

You are unable to get back into your ACA account on healthcare.gov because it keeps telling you your username and/or password is invalid.

Type in your Username (if you know it), then click on “forgot password.” The Marketplace will send a link to your email account through which you can reset your password. It might ask you the answers to your three security questions that you put in the system previously. If this doesn’t work, start a new account with a different email address. If you don’t have a second email account in your family that you can use (and can access), open a new email account (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc. are free). This will be your ACA email account that you will use when the Marketplace asks you to check your email in order to proceed with an ACA application. It will also be the email account where you will get notices from healthcare.gov and from your health insurance company after you enroll.

Write down everything. Make sure you keep track of your new ACA account username and password and also your new email username and password.

If you are still unable to get into your account or create a new one, you will need to contact the Marketplace Call Center to help you start and submit your ACA application. That number is (800) 318-2596. Make sure you have all your family members’ Social Security numbers, birth dates, employment addresses and phone numbers, wages, other income (total adjusted gross income for 2014), etc. The Call Center person will walk you through the application (you won’t be able to see it on your computer, unfortunately) and will verify everything as you go. They will ask you if you want to know if you qualify for help paying insurance premiums and you want to say yes! Make sure that when they tell you your “eligibility results,” they give you your application ID number. Write it down. This will enable you to more easily retrieve your application via the Call Center in the future.

The Call Center person will ask you if you want the whole tax subsidy applied to your monthly premium payments or only a portion of it. Most people want it all applied so that they will owe as little as possible each month. However, if you are unsure of the stability of the annual income you reported on your application, it might be a good idea to have, say, 85 percent of the tax subsidy applied to your premiums and get the other 15 percent back when you do your 2014 taxes in 2015. This will keep you from having to pay back some of the subsidy if your income ends up being higher than you reported. Regardless of your choice, you can always update your income figure (or any other life changes) on your ACA application throughout the year via the Call Center and this will prevent any penalties later.

Once the Call Center completes your application, personnel there will go over the different insurance plans available to you. The premium costs, deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums they describe are what you would actually owe (the tax subsidy was already applied to the policies). The first few will be Moda Health policies and are the least costly. Moda used to be ODS and has operated in Alaska for 10 years (and in the Pacific Northwest since 1955). It is a legitimate insurance company with the same benefits and access to providers as Alaska’s other insurance company under the ACA, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Once you know your options, you can ask the Call Center person to enroll you in a plan. Write down the name of the plan, the cost figures and the customer service number of the insurance company. Give the insurance company a week or two to get you into its system. You should receive a welcome email, your policy information and your insurance cards either via email (the one on your ACA account) or snail mail. You will then arrange your first payment directly with the insurance company.

Problem No. 2

You are able to log into your ACA account, but you can’t pull up your previous application through the “open existing application” link.

If the application is not showing “COMPLETED,” you will be able to remove that application and start a new one. If it is completed (meaning you already enrolled in a health plan and are supposed to be done with the entire process), follow other directions below.

If the application is “In Process,” click on the green “Remove” button in the box that contains the application ID number and its status. It will ask if you are sure you want to remove the application. Verify that you do. Then you will be taken back to the “What would you like to do?” page. You will start a new application by clicking on the “shop for coverage” button like you did to start with. Some of the information you filled in before will still be there. Follow all the directions carefully and write everything down as you go. See application tips above. Be sure to click on the “log out” button at the top if you need to step away and finish it later. You might need to fill in some of the personal or income information again when you go back in.

If the application already has been completed but you haven’t received any information from either Moda Health or Premera Blue Cross (whichever company you chose for coverage) after two weeks of enrolling, your file might have been caught up in a “file corruption” hole and the insurance company never received your enrollment. This has happened to about 15 percent of enrollees nationwide and a couple of Valley folks, so far. If you believe this is the case, contact Kate McKee at Mat-Su Health Services for assistance. She will help you report your case to the appropriate people and get it resolved as quickly as possible.

Problem No. 3

You think your application was automatically sent to Medicaid for qualification (or if you indicated you wanted to see if you qualified for Medicaid), you will need to wait for your Medicaid denial before you’ll be able to continue with your ACA application.

Please keep in mind that you need to have a minimum adjusted gross income for 2014 of about $14,500 for a single adult; $19,500 for a family of two; $24,600 for a family of three; $29,600 for a family of four; and $34,600 for a family of five (and so on) in order to qualify for the tax subsidies that will help cover premium costs. There are income maximums, too. If you fall below those poverty levels, you will not be able to get affordable insurance and you probably won’t be able to get Medicaid either, because Governor Parnell chose not to take the Medicaid Expansion funds available through the ACA.

If you have additional questions, get stuck or need in-person assistance, call Kate McKee at Mat-Su Health Services at 352-3225, the healthcare.gov Call Center at (800) 318-2596 or Enroll Alaska (ACA insurance brokers) at (855) 385-5550.