Dive Brief:
- Two new reports from the HHS Office of Inspector General have concluded that the federal health insurance exchange failed to appropriately verify individuals' data used for determining their eligibility for coverage and premium subsidies.
- The Obama administration has begun notifying hundreds of thousands of people who acquired subsidized exchange coverage to verify their eligibility. If they don't, they could risk paying back some of their subsidy or losing their coverage entirely.
- The HHS OIG reports found that the biggest sources of potentially inaccurate information were citizenship status (44%) and income (33%).
Industry Dive:
All told, the OIG found that the federal exchange had 2.9 million consumer data inconsistencies between Oct.1, 2013 to Feb. 23, 2014. That's a pretty big number considering that total enrollment to date sits at around eight million. And the errors were manifold. Not only were there income and citizenship verification questions, the federal exchange didn't verify each applicant's Social Security numbers through the Social Security Administration as per its own rules. Meanwhile, the state exchanges also failed to verify consumer eligibility and have struggled to fix discrepancies. It appears there's a lot of work to be done here.