A “disappointed” State Health Benefit Exchange Board met in SeaTac on Thursday and questioned the consulting firm responsible for the health insurance processing problems that have left 6000 HBE enrollee accounts in limbo. Benush Venugopal, a principal with Deloitte Consulting tried to assure the Board that Deloitte was committing additional resources to help solve the problem. However, given that the last fix not only did not solve the problem but added additional problems, and Venugopal could not give any assurance on when technology problems might be corrected, Board member Ben Danielson called the situation “unacceptable.”

HBE Board meets in SeaTac on July 24.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler also expressed his frustration that the problems have been know for months and complaints have continued to go up in each of the last five months even though his Office does not have jurisdiction over the HBE. He noted that one valid complaint would have led to an enforcement action against a health insurance company and in this case he has had over 1200 complaints in the last five months.

Commissioner Kreidler also emphasized that requiring enrollees to pay their premiums to the HBE instead of the insurance companies, the root of much of the problem, is not required by federal health care reform and not a “core function” for the HBE. In the case of the 6000 accounts, premium payments and insurance status information are not reaching carriers. This is a small fraction of total enrollment in the Exchange but the impact is huge for enrollees and their families seeking health care treatment and being told they have no insurance.

In other business the Board continued to work on its budget for 2015 and 2016.

Board meeting materials can be found at http://wahbexchange.org/news-resources/calendar/b2/ .

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