Healthcare.gov: Are the Bugs Finally Fixed?

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Dec. 27, 2013 - PRLog -- When open enrollment first began on October 1^st, Healthcare.gov was only operational about 43% of the time, with frequent crashes, according to Jeffrey Zients, the administration official appointed to oversee improvements to the troubled website.

Many consumers looking to purchase insurance though Healthcare.gov in the first month of open enrollment received frequent error messages and experienced frustratingly slow page-load speeds, with the website frequently timing out.

Eligibility problems also occurred. Those who were able to successfully register and send in an enrollment application through Healthcare.gov sometimes received incorrect information regarding their eligibility for federal subsidies or Medicaid, or no information at all.

On the backend, insurers also reported receiving incomplete or duplicate data from the system. One insurer even reported an applicant appearing to have three spouses, when in fact he had one spouse and two dependents.

In mid-October, the Obama administration hired experts in the private sector to conduct an assessment of Healthcare.gov. The assessment determined the root causes for the website’s glitches and poor user experience to be hundreds of software bugs, insufficient hardware and infrastructure, and insufficient response mechanisms for responding to issues in real time. A five week series of intensive technical fixes then began, and the website gradually became more fully functioning by the end of November, 2013.

So are the bugs finally fixed?

A good many are, but not all of them. “As we have been processing enrollments since early December, we have seen daily improvements to the site.” says Josh Williams, the Founder and President of WNC Health Insurance / The Asheville Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina® Store.

Healthcare.gov can now handle 50,000 simultaneous health insurance shoppers at one time, and is working 90% of the time, according to Zients. But, whether the website will be able to meet the Obama administration’s goals of allowing 80,000 users per hour to register and another 320,000 people per hour to log in, has yet to be seen. According to Williams, “During times of heavy traffic, typically during the noon hour on the East Coast close to an enrollment deadline, users are put into a queue. Before 11 am and after 2 pm and on the weekends, there is no waiting. We are getting our clients through the entire process, from creating an account to paying their first month’s premium, in less than 25 minutes outside of midday.”

System time outs have dropped from 6% to below 1%, and a Healthcare.gov command center has been established to monitor the website’s error rates, response times and traffic volume in real time. “Like any web site, it can go down from time to time” says Williams. “Do not put yourself up against a wall by pushing your enrollment to the last minute.” Open enrollment continues through March 31, 2014.

Most importantly, insurance agents can now confirm their clients’ enrollments were correctly transmitted from the Marketplace to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. According to Williams, “We started to receive daily reports on December 20. We can confirm that our client’s enrollment has been received by BCBSNC usually within a couple of days. We can also create a payment voucher if they did not pay in our store and send it to them by e-mail. Our reports will confirm that this payment has been received by BCBSNC.”

About the Author: WNC Health Insurance offers free education and personal assistance in selecting a health insurance plan through the federally run North Carolina Health Insurance Marketplace. For more information, or to contact one of our experienced insurance agents, visit:  http://www.bluestoreashevillenc.com