GEAR

It’s the final days of Open Enrollment!

Everyone has been working hard and the final push is here. We know that all of your focus right now is helping consumers at the last minute, so we’ll keep this week’s newsletter brief.

Help Consumers Think about Their Plans before Their Appointment                  

We know that this last week has been full of enrollment appointments and you likely have consumers lined up to meet with you. Often times the longest part of the process is the plan selection at the very end. One way to help streamline this process and give consumers something to do while they’re waiting is to have them visit Enroll America’s Get Covered Plan Explorer. This tool helps consumers to better understand key features of their health plan choices like what they will pay out of pocket for health care services in a given year, and what doctors are covered. It also allows consumers to look at plans before they have even created a healthcare.gov account.

Resource Highlight – Health Coverage and Taxes tool from Healthcare.gov

This new tool from healthcare.gov combines the lowest cost bronze plan (LCBP) and second lowest cost silver plan (SLCSP) look-up features in one tool. This should make it easier for consumers when they are filing their taxes if they received a premium tax credit or are applying for an affordability exemption.

New Marketplace Resources

New SEP Guidelines – CMS Blog

Tax Resource Hub – In the Loop

#Heretohelp Campaign – HHS and In the Loop

Enrollment Video for Consumers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSVADiu8HxM

Do you work with consumers that more information on the enrollment process? Do you need a tool for outreach while consumers are waiting for an appointment? Check out GHF’s “Getting Covered During Open Enrollment” with our enrollment assister, Pranay Rana. It’s a great piece to add to your tool box.

The Final Enrollment Push

There are less than two weeks left in Open Enrollment and the final push is coming. If this year is anything like the previous OE’s, there will be a big rush of consumers during the final days. Make sure you talk to your consumers about the deadline (Jan. 31) and educate them on all of the materials they need for open enrollment. Nothing is more frustrating for you and the consumer than having them come to you in the final days of open enrollment, but not having all of the materials they need. Here is a great resource to remind consumers what they need to bring with them to an enrollment appointment:

[embeddoc url=”http://ghf.jasonaxelson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ET01_ApplicationGuide.pdf”]Resource Highlight – Marketplace Assister Newsletter Archive from In the Loop

During Open Enrollment while you’re focused on consumer appointments, outreach opportunities, and other enrollment tasks, it’s hard to stay on top of emails, new resources, webinars, etc. If you receive the CMS weekly assister newsletter, you may just scan it and then hit delete or let it fall to the bottom of your in box while you try to manage all of your other emails. However, those emails are often times full of great information that you may find out you wish you had known about during OE. Fortunately, our friends over at In the Loop understand this and have created an archive of all the assister newsletters. Now you can go back and look through them for any missed info, such as the Assister’s Roadmap to Resources and all of their archived webinars. Click here to go to the In the Loop archive.

New Marketplace Resources

Getting Ready for Tax Season blog – CMS

Report on enrollments for the first part of 2016 open enrollment – HHS

“The Who’s Who of Complaints, Appeals, and Casework: Deluxe Edition” – In the Loop

Do you have any resources that you use that you would like to see highlighted in GEAR? Send them to wgriggs@healthyfuture.org and let us know!

Check Out the New GEAR Page!

Georgians for a Healthy Future is excited to announce the launch of our new website, and along with it, the new GEAR page. The pages have new lay outs and features, which will make navigating them and finding what you are looking for even easier. You can still find our home page at healthyfuturega.org and the GEAR page healthyfuturega.org/gear. Go ahead, check it out and let us know what you think. As always, if there is something that you think that should be on the GEAR page that isn’t there now, let us know!

Still Not a Member of In the Loop? Join to Get Their Best Practices of The Day Emails

As we’ve mentioned before, In the Loop is a great resource for enrollment assisters. Being a part of the In the Loop Community allows you to interact with other enrollment assisters from around the country, learn best practices, share trouble shooting tips and more. Need another perk to get you to join? In the Loop also sends out daily emails with their best practices of the day from fellow enrollment assisters. These emails provide you with tips and tricks to make enrollment a lot easier and smoother. Often times their suggestions are things you might not have even thought of before. So if you still need to join In the Loop*, click here.

* In the Loop is only for enrollment assisters and other enrollment stakeholders, in order to keep it a place where people can confidently share information. As such, In the Loop does require registration and approves each person that wants to join.

Resource Highlight – “How Premium Tax Credits Work” Video from Healthcare.gov

The video helps consumers understand how the financial assistance they received through their advanced premium tax credits will be reconciled when they file their taxes. The video is also available in Spanish.

New Marketplace Resources

Taxes and the Health Insurance Marketplace – healthcare.gov

SHOP Basics and 2016 Updates webinar – CMS

Ledger to Calculate Income for Self-Employed Consumers – In the Loop

Happy New Year from GEAR and Georgians for a Healthy Future!

We hope that everyone had a happy, healthy and relaxing holidays! Congratulations on all of the hard work you have done for the past two months helping over half a million Georgians enroll in coverage. There’s a little less than a month left of open enrollment and we’re GEARing up for the final push!

Special Announcement!

Join us for the ACA Stakeholder call today at 1pm with Kevin Counihan, CEO of healthcare.gov! We want to make sure that Georgia is well represented with a strong attendance. We know that everyone is busy, but this is a great chance to connect with a top official. Click here to  register for the call.

Shout Out to Georgia’s Rock Star Assisters!

Congratulations to Amalia Benvenutti and Amber Higgins from InsureGA for being among In the Loop’s “Looper Rock Stars”! The rock stars are nominated by fellow In the Looper’s for going above and beyond the call of duty. Here’s what their peers had to say about Amalia and Amber:

“Amalia goes above and beyond for her consumers and her fellow navigators. This is our first year at our organization and she’s helped over 100 consumers in Georgia. She is very knowledgeable and I couldn’t think of anyone better that deserves the honor.”

“Because Amber was one of the first regional navigators with our organization to be licensed for OE 3, she has been assigned events and tasks to assist others outside of her designated region. I am very fortunate to be colleagues with such a professional and caring person.”

Resource Highlight – Families USA’s “Follow-up: Increase Your Impact and Keep Them Coming Back” Webinar

With less than a month left in open enrollment, follow-up with consumers is especially vital to make sure people enroll and pay their premium. Families USA hosted a webinar to discuss best practices to make sure that both consumers and enrollment assisters are follow-up with each other after an enrollment appoint. We know that everyone’s time is tight, but the webinar is fairly short and very informative, so take a moment to check it out (you may even see a familiar name).

New Marketplace Resources

A Tune-Up on Eligibility Rules and Application Process for Families with Immigrants

Georgetown University Center for Children and Families

The Catalog of Assister Promising Practices

CMS

The ACA and Tax Filing for Married, Separated, and Abandoned Spouses 

In the Loop