This past year just flew by.  But Open Enrollment is upon us again.  The Open Enrollment period runs from Nov. 15th through Feb. 15th.  (Any plan changes to start on the first of a month must be made by the 15th of the previous month.)   All of you should have received letters or emails from either your insurance carrier or from Covered CA, or from both.  Many of you may not need to do anything at all for your plans to continue.  However all of you who received subsidies through Covered CA will all need to take action.  Details on how to do this are at the bottom of this email.

NOTE: If you require assistance, but we are not your agent, you may designate us as your agent in order to receive our assistance.

If you have an ON Exchange Individual Health Plan

(i.e.  you obtained your Anthem Blue Cross or Blue Shield or Kaiser or Health Net plan through Covered CA, either with or without our assistance as your agent.)

You must “Renew” your plan if you want to continue receiving your subsidy for the 2015 year.  You do this by logging into CoveredCA.com using your User ID and Password.  Government regulations require that you so this in order to continue the subsidy.  If you don’t do this, the premium for your plan will jump up to the full non-subsidized rate and you will be billed for that.  Some may also lose the cost reduction feature on the Silver 70+ AV plans.  Details on how to do this are at the end of this email.

If you have an OFF Exchange Individual Health Plan

(i.e. you obtained your Anthem Blue Cross or Blue Shield or Kaiser or Health Net or Cigna health plan, outside of Covered CA.  You did not apply for a subsidized plan.   You may or may not have used us as your agent.)

Please read the letters from your insurance carrier carefully.  Most of your plans will continue and you may not need to do anything to continue.  However for some of you, especially those who are on Health Net plans, they have cancelled some plans and changed many from PPO to EPO.  You may want to research new carriers or plans.

How to “Renew” Your Covered CA Subsidized Health Plan

Log into your account on Covered CA by going to: www.coveredca.com and once you are on your account page choose Renew (yellow box).   Next will appear Household Plan Selection and click Renew Health Plan (yellow box).

On the next page, two boxes will appear: Choose either Keep the Plan you now have or Shop for a different plan.

If you want to keep your current plan click Keep (yellow box) and checkout (yellow box) check all boxes, put in your pin number, sign and click Enroll (yellow box). On the next page you can print out your confirmation page and make sure you click Done (yellow box). Submit your payment to the carrier no later than December 26, 2014 by either calling your carrier or logging into their website to pay online.

If you want to change your plan when you are on the page that says: Keep the plan you now have or Shop for a different plan you will “remove your plan” (yellow box) first and then click on “Shop for a different plan”. Next page you will review all plans and choose a new plan, check out, check all boxes, put in your pin number, sign and click “Enroll” (yellow box). You can print out your confirmation page and click Done (yellow box). Submit your payment to the carrier no later than December 26, 2014 by either calling your carrier or logging into their website to pay online.

Please contact us, Lee Health Insurance Services, at 925-284-2000 if we can be of assistance.

Phil Lee

www.health-insurance.com

http://www.yelp.com/biz/lee-insurance-services-lafayette-6