Agents and brokers may have to do some babysitting to make sure HealthCare.gov gets and keeps the information that helps the producers get paid.
Managers of HealthCare.gov, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) public exchange enrollment system, gave HealthCare.gov producers that message Tuesday during an exchange producer webinar, according to a webinar slidedeck.
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HealthCare.gov managers hold weekly producer webinars at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays during the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) open enrollment period.
HealthCare.gov exchange producers have complained for years about problems with National Producer Numbers (NPNs) dropping off of exchange plan clients’ applications. When NPNs drop off applications, producers may have trouble getting commissions or other payments even from the insurers that are still paying commissions.
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CMS recently took steps to make sure NPNs stay attached to clients’ HealthCare.gov applications, and it “believes the actions it has taken resolve concerns about NPNs falling off a small subset of enrollment transactions moving forward,” officials said.
Privacy concerns limit producers’ ability to look at clients’ applications on their own.
CMS officials said producers can look for NPNs when they are helping clients use the HealthCare.gov website. If the NPN is not on the application, “have the consumer re-enter it before the consumer closes out the application,” officials said.