If You Changed Affordable Care Act Insurance Providers, Make Sure Your Former Provider Knows

Photo credit: Bart Everson, CC BY 2.0.

So… you know how I signed up with a new Affordable Care Act insurance provider during Open Enrollment this year?

Nobody told my old provider.

Premera, my former Washington State insurance provider, sent me a bill and an insurance card in the mail.

I’m a little confused as to how I got enrolled in a 2018 Affordable Care Act health insurance plan without my knowledge or consent, but I’m guessing there was some fine print somewhere along the lines of “if you do not update your Premera insurance for 2018, we’ll automatically enroll you in the plan closest to the one you currently have.”

I called Premera yesterday, assuming it would be easy to say “hey, I moved states and changed providers for 2018, please cancel this plan.”

HAHAHAHA NOPE.

The Premera CSR said I needed to get on a conference call with both Premera and “the health insurance exchange,” because apparently telling Premera I want to cancel isn’t enough, so I hung around on hold until I got conferenced in… and immediately hung up on. (Looks like someone pressed the wrong button.)

I can also email Premera requesting to cancel my insurance, so I did that as soon as the conference call dropped and I’ll probably call them again this afternoon.

Has anyone else had this issue when they switched health insurance providers? I’m wondering if part of this is because Washington’s ACA insurance enrollment goes through WAHealthPlanFinder.org, not Healthcare.gov, and the two systems didn’t communicate.

I just hope it all gets resolved without my having to be part of a conference call.

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