The deadline to enroll uninsured Marylanders in health coverage hangs over officials' heads as they scurry to sign up residents in qualified plans by March 31.
It's the final push for Maryland Health Connection, the state's online insurance marketplace. The troubled site has faced harsh criticism for its glitches, resulting in a March 10 announcement that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inspector general - who has subpoena powers - will review the state's health-care exchange.
Adopting another state's technology, such as Connecticut's exchange, is an option Maryland health officials are considering, according to Dori Henry, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokeswoman. However, no decisions have been reached at this time.
Almost 40,700 Marylanders had enrolled in private health plans through the exchange as of March 8, according to a Maryland Health Connection weekly report issued Friday.
Data specific to Western Maryland are unavailable at this time, according to Eric Masten, Healthy Howard's director of health policy, advocacy and communications. The Door to HealthCare is a Healthy Howard program charged with signing up residents in the Western Maryland region, which includes Carroll, Allegany, Frederick, Garrett, Howard and Washington counties.
The team made changes to how it tracked data in the middle of open enrollment, and thus, does not have an accurate reflection of how many Western Maryland residents have signed up through the region's health-care representatives, Masten said.
The Times requested Western Maryland data several times from Maryland Health Connection, but officials said the data is not broken down by region. An email Thursday from spokeswoman Elizabeth Charlow stated Maryland Health Connection still did not have this information, and it would likely be released after open enrollment period closes.
But, at this point, the data aren't what matters, said Dorothy Fox, executive director for the The Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County, which serves as Healthy Howard's regional connector entity.
"I know numbers are important," she said, "but right now it's really about who we're able to reach."
The last two or three weeks have been particularly busy due to open enrollment's looming deadline, according to Roy Libdan, Carroll's health benefit exchange program manager. While open enrollment ends March 31 for qualified health plans, Medicaid signup will continue on an ongoing basis.
Community outreach is the focus, Fox said, through advertising on Carroll Area Transit System buses, by word-of-mouth from representatives and more. An event at Denny's in late February targeted the "young invincibles" - those 18- to 34-year-olds who are crucial to the health exchange. The idea is that the young and the healthy are supposed to sign up to balance the sick and the elderly, who are more apt to use their insurance.
Problems signing up began when the website went live Oct. 1. This prompted Gov. Martin O'Malley to push an emergency measure through the state legislature to cover the uninsured who attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to enroll in a plan through the website before Jan. 1. The bill passed the Maryland General Assembly and netted the governor's signature Jan. 30.
The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange board voted last month to oust the website's prime IT contractor, Noridian Healthcare Solutions, according to a Maryland Health Connection Feb. 24 news release. It opted to transition Optum/QSSI into the role, which was the same company hired in October to fix the federal health exchange's glitch-plagued site.
A mistake with the state's health-care exchange could cost Maryland $30.5 million, according to a Maryland Department of Legislative Services report, as problems with the exchange have made it hard to determine whether people remain eligible for Medicaid, The Associated Press reported.
As of last month, Carroll health-care officials still sometimes had to use paper applications to sign up individuals and families coming to them for help. Then, many times, officials had to re-enter that information into Maryland Health Connection's websites' internal portal, which Libdan called a "double effort."
Yet, substantial improvements have been made, according to Maryland Health Connection's Friday report.
"Many of the technical glitches most frustrating to consumers have been fixed," the report states, "and we continue to work to address others that continue to cause difficulties for some Maryland consumers."
Anecdotally, Masten said he believes the Western Maryland region is helping a fair amount of uninsured residents enroll in the exchange.
"Based on the trends that we've been seeing," he said, "we're confident that we're doing well in terms of our numbers of folks that we're working with in the region."
