CMS NEWS: Biweekly Enrollment Snapshot

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2016
Contact: CMS Media Relations
(202) 690-6145 | CMS Media Inquiries

Biweekly Enrollment Snapshot 

WEEKS 1 AND 2, NOV 1 - 12, 2016

In weeks one and two of Open Enrollment for the Health Insurance Martketplace for 2017, millions of people came to Healthcare.gov and shopped for quality, affordable plans. Over a million people selected plans using the Healthcare.gov platform since Open Enrollment began November 1, including about 250,000 new consumers and over 750,000 consumers renewing their coverage.

“We are all in for this Open Enrollment and excited that over 1 million people have already signed up for 2017 coverage through HealthCare.gov,” said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. “The American people are demonstrating how much they continue to want and need the coverage the Marketplace offers, and we are encouraging all Americans who need health insurance for 2017 to visit HealthCare.gov or their state Marketplace and check out their options. Most consumers can find a plan for $75 or less per month, and consumers should enroll by December 15^th for coverage that starts January 1^st.”

As in past years, enrollment weeks are measured Sunday through Saturday. Therefore, this year, week one was only five days long, from Tuesday to Saturday, and thus this biweekly snapshot covers the first twelve days. There were 53,000 more plan selections during the first 12 days of Open Enrollment this year than last year. Moreover, enrollment accelerated on November 9^th, as CMS launched additional outreach. Over 300,000 people selected plans from November 9^th through November 11^th.

Every two weeks during Open Enrollment, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will release enrollment snapshots for the HealthCare.gov platform, which is used by the Federally-facilitated Marketplaces and State Partnership Marketplaces, as well as some State-based Marketplaces. These snapshots provide point-in-time estimates of biweekly plan selections, call center activity, and visits to HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov. The final number of plan selections associated with enrollment activity during a reporting period may change as plan modifications or cancellations occur, such as due to life changes like starting a new job or getting married. In addition, as in previous years, the biweekly snapshot only reports new plan selections, active plan renewals and, starting at the end of December, auto-renewals; it does not report the number of consumers who have paid premiums to effectuate their enrollment.

Later in the Open Enrollment period, HHS will produce more detailed reports that look at plan selections across the Marketplace, including both states using the HealthCare.gov platform and State-based Marketplaces using their own enrollment platforms.

Definitions and details on the data are included in the glossary.

Federal Marketplace Snapshot

Federal Marketplace Snapshot	Weeks 1 and 2 Nov 1 – 12
Plan Selections (net)	1,008,218
New Consumers	246,433
Consumers Renewing Coverage	761,785
Consumers on Applications Submitted	2,057,759
Call Center Volume	1,247,899
Calls with Spanish Speaking Representative	87,126
HealthCare.gov Users	4,528,675
CuidadoDeSalud.gov Users	133,081
Window Shopping HealthCare.gov Users	1,207,985
Window Shopping CuidadoDeSalud.gov Users	16,230

Glossary

Plan Selections:  The cumulative metric represents the total number of people who have submitted an application and selected a plan, net of any cancellations from a consumer or cancellations from an insurer that have occurred to date. The biweekly metric represents the net change in the number of non-cancelled plan sections over the two-week period covered by the report.

Plan selections will include those consumers who are automatically re-enrolled into a plan, which occurs at the end of December.

To have their coverage effectuated, consumers generally need to pay their first month’s health plan premium. This release does not report the number of effectuated enrollments.

New Consumers: A consumer is considered to be a new consumer if they did not have Marketplace coverage at the start of Open Enrollment on November 1^st, 2016.

Renewing Consumers: A consumer is considered to be a renewing consumer if they had 2016 Marketplace coverage on November 1^st, 2016 at the start of Open Enrollment and either actively select the same plan or a new plan for 2017 or are automatically re-enrolled into a plan, which occurs at the end of December.

Marketplace: Generally, references to the Health Insurance Marketplace in this report refer to 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform. The states using the HealthCare.gov platform are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

HealthCare.gov States: The 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform for the 2017 benefit year, including the Federally-facilitated Marketplace, State Partnership Marketplaces and State-based Marketplaces.

Consumers on Applications Submitted:  This includes a consumer who is on a completed and submitted application or who, through the automatic re-enrollment process, which occurs at the end of December, had an application submitted to a Marketplace using the HealthCare.gov platform. If determined eligible for Marketplace coverage, a new consumer still needs to pick a health plan (i.e., plan selection) and pay their premium to get covered (i.e., effectuated enrollment). Because families can submit a single application, this figure tallies the total number of people on a submitted application (rather than the total number of submitted applications).

Call Center Volume:  The total number of calls received by the call center for the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform over the course of the weeks covered by the snapshot or from the start of Open Enrollment. Calls with Spanish speaking representatives are not included.

Calls with Spanish Speaking Representative:  The total number of calls received by the Federally-facilitated Marketplace call center where consumers chose to speak with a Spanish-speaking representative. These calls are not included within the Call Center Volume metric.

HealthCare.gov or CuidadodeSalud.gov  Users: These user metrics total how many unique users viewed or interacted with HealthCare.gov or CuidadodeSalud.gov, respectively, over the course of a specific date range. For cumulative totals, a separate report is run for the entire Open Enrollment period to minimize users being counted more than once during that longer range of time and to provide a more accurate estimate of unique users. Depending on an individual’s browser settings and browsing habits, a visitor may be counted as a unique user more than once.

Window Shopping HealthCare.gov Users or CuidadoDeSalud.gov Users: These user metrics total how many unique users interacted with the window-shopping tool at HealthCare.gov or CuidadoDeSalud.gov, respectively, over the course of a specific date range. For cumulative totals, a separate report is run for the entire Open Enrollment period to minimize users being counted more than once during that longer range of time and to provide a more accurate estimate of unique users. Depending on an individual’s browser settings and browsing habits, a visitor may be counted as a unique user more than once. Users who window-shopped are also included in the total HealthCare.gov orCuidadoDeSalud.gov user total.