Dive Brief:
- With a last-minute surge of consumers visiting the site, it's beginning to look like ACA enrollment may meet the administration's goal of 7 million subscribers just ahead of the March 31 enrollment deadline.
- The Obama administration said the call center that supports the health insurance marketplace has taken a record number of calls from consumers, further suggesting a last-minute burst of enrollments.
- CMS said that as of last week, more than 6 million consumers had signed up, but officials wouldn't say whether the final number will meet or exceed the original projection of 7 million.
Dive Insight:
So, it appears as though the Obama administration may hit its enrollment target for the first year of the ACA marketplaces. Now the challenge is to integrate that wave of beneficiaries into the health system. This will be more challenging than it may have appeared at first. For example, primary care practices may be overloaded with the newly-insured, and emergency departments too, as consumers have a pesky habit of hitting the ED whether they're insured or not. It's definitely going to be something of an adventure seeing how the new enrollees leverage their health insurance, and what effect that has on providers.