A Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokesperson revealed that 25 percent of 834 forms submitted to insurance companies through HealthCare.gov in its first two months included faulty data. The Obama administration now asserts that most of those problems have been addressed and the rate of applications affected has been reduced to 10 percent.
As described by the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff, 834 forms are reporting tools used by insurance companies to identify who enrollees are, meaning that errors would make it difficult, if not impossible, for insurers to know who has enrolled. The errors in October and November include everything from insurers not receiving the applications, errors in the transfer of information, or duplicate forms, according to the Washington Times.
The revelation comes after weeks of the White House stonewalling reporters in response to questions about whether the errors could result in users thinking they’ve enrolled for coverage starting January 1 of next year and discovering that they haven’t successfully done so. On Tuesday, when press secretary Jay Carney was asked about a Washington Post report that one-third of the enrollments had an error, he said that figure was not accurate but refused to provide a more accurate one.
But on Friday CMS spokesperson Julie Bataille told reporters in a call that one in four applications had experienced errors during the process, but that the agency has reduced the problem to one in ten of all current applications. “I would certainly encourage any consumer that has a question of their insurance choice to contact the insurance company of their choice to get additional information,” she said.
Bataille said CMS did not know the current error rate for new applications.