{"id":31762,"date":"2023-09-14T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/about-5000-people-will-have-an-insurance-gap-after-friday-healths-collapse-in-colorado\/"},"modified":"2023-09-14T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T15:00:00","slug":"about-5000-people-will-have-an-insurance-gap-after-friday-healths-collapse-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/about-5000-people-will-have-an-insurance-gap-after-friday-healths-collapse-in-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"About 5,000 people will have an insurance gap after Friday Health\u2019s collapse in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Real
Real estate agent Lauren Gibbs penciled out math equations to manage the complex transition from her now-defunct Friday Health Plans insurance plan to a new insurer.<\/span>Andrew Kenney\/CPR News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The state allowed those affected to buy new plans through a special enrollment period. But not everyone did so before their Friday Health policies expired on Aug. 31.<\/p>\n

About a quarter of the company\u2019s Colorado customers did not choose a new plan before that deadline. As a result, about 5,000 of them will be uninsured for at least a month.<\/p>\n

Those customers can still take action: The special enrollment period is still open, so they can choose a new plan anytime through the end of the year. In fact, about 400 people have already enrolled since the initial deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still not too late,\u201d said Kevin Patterson, CEO of Connect for Health Colorado, the state\u2019s health insurance exchange. \u201cIf they want to come in, we\u2019re still here ready to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone enrolling this month will begin their new coverage on Oct. 1. Those enrolling in October can begin coverage on Nov. 1. But a coverage gap of even a few weeks can be costly, since injuries and illnesses suffered during that time may not be covered by insurance.<\/p>\n

Unexpected costs may discourage consumers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friday Health customers in Colorado have apparently been slow to choose new health insurance, at least compared to one other state.<\/p>\n

In North Carolina, 97% of the company\u2019s customers bought a plan before their coverage expired last month, according to a state spokesman. That\u2019s compared to about 76% who re-enrolled before the initial deadline in Colorado. Oklahoma and Nevada, however, are more in line with Colorado, citing respective re-enrollment rates of about 60% and 70%, respectively.<\/p>\n

Representatives of one other affected state, Georgia, wouldn\u2019t disclose the re-enrollment rate for Friday Health customers, citing data privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

Mike Rhoads, a deputy commissioner with the Oklahoma Insurance Department, suggested that some consumers were discouraged from switching because it can bring new costs, especially having to start over on deductibles. Switching plans also may require choosing new doctors and other hassles.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that have met their deductible may be rolling the dice and thinking, \u2018I don\u2019t want to go through that again.\u2019 That is a hardship on them,\u201d Rhoads said.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, only two insurers \u2014 Kaiser Permanente and Denver Health Medical Plan \u2014 have offered to honor the deductibles of Friday Health plans, allowing customers to carry over progress and save money. Others have refused. Similarly, all the insurers in Oklahoma refused, Rhoads said.<\/p>\n

Lauren Gibbs, a real estate agent in Lakewood, said she faced up to $3,000 in extra costs because of her lost deductible, and ended up cutting back on health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason we have insurance is so we don\u2019t have an unexpected expense, like $3,000,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFull-court press\u201d for re-enrollment<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Colorado, insurance officials reached out directly to affected customers through email and letters, and they enlisted insurance brokers and others to help spread the word, Patterson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been a full-court press,\u201d Patterson said, adding that some brokers had inquiries from hundreds of Friday Health customers. Much of the company\u2019s marketing was focused on self-employed people and gig workers who don\u2019t get insurance through their work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear why thousands of Colorado customers haven\u2019t bought new insurance. Friday Health was one of just two insurance options for some southeast Colorado counties, according to Patterson, but he said there was no clear pattern to the enrollment lags. Demographic data on the newly uninsured wasn\u2019t immediately available.<\/p>\n

Colorado regulators were not alone in shutting Friday down. The company also closed up shop midyear in its four other remaining markets \u2014 North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Oklahoma. The company\u2019s financial picture was worsening, and regulators feared that doctors would stop accepting Friday Health\u2019s plans amid questions about its ability to pay.<\/p>\n

Critics have said that Friday Health, like Bright HealthCare before it, set competitive premiums to attract customers, but ultimately grew too fast and couldn\u2019t keep up with the costs of that coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t understand health insurance. Health insurance is really complicated,\u201d said health insurance consultant Ari Gottlieb, principal at A2 Strategy Corp and a former director for PwC\u2019s Health Services practice.<\/p>\n

Colorado this spring placed Friday Health into receivership, essentially taking command of its state-based business amid mounting financial concerns. But soon after, in July, the company\u2019s national leadership laid off all its staff and essentially left state regulators to handle the management and administration of the company, said state insurance commissioner Michael Conway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company literally handed over the keys and said, \u2018We\u2019re firing everybody as of July 6,\u2019\u201d Conway said in an interview last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rehired a core base of people [from the company\u2019s headquarters] in Alamosa. We also then worked with the contractors, the vendors \u2026 that the company hadn\u2019t been paying for quite some period of time, and we renegotiated those contracts and got those vendors back up and running,\u201d Conway said.<\/p>\n

Failing to do so could have resulted in \u201can abject disaster,\u201d he added. \u201cWe still have bumps in the road, but it wasn\u2019t as bad as we feared that it was potentially going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday Health Plans and Bright HealthCare have not responded to numerous requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Friday Health customers can still try to recover expenses<\/strong><\/p>\n

The state will continue to operate the remnants of Friday Health as its remaining claims and business affairs are settled, a process that can take years.<\/p>\n

The shutdown may also create a financial hangover that affects other companies and customers, since they may be on the hook for costs that go beyond Friday Health\u2019s remaining financial resources. It\u2019s not clear yet how much money the state\u2019s Guaranty Association \u2014 which is funded by other insurers \u2014 will have to pay toward those costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still hopeful that it\u2019s going to be relatively small,\u201d Conway said in the Aug. 28 interview.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the question of the costs to customers who paid thousands of dollars toward their Friday Health deductibles, only to have that progress wiped away. Those people can file claims against the estate of the company to recover some of their losses. More information is available through the state Division of Insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a number of creditors that will file claims as part of the liquidation that happens in every liquidation, but there\u2019s a clear priority schedule and law too that defines who gets paid first,\u201d Conway said. \u201cSo we\u2019re hopeful that we\u2019re going to be able to get to those policyholders that are filing claims for their deductibles or their cost shares generally. But that will run through the claims process and that should take anything around six to eight months for it to flush itself out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibbs, the real estate agent, was affected by the shutdowns of both Bright and Friday Health. She had originally hoped that the two companies would be innovators who spurred new competition in the market.<\/p>\n

But now she\u2019s left disappointed and hoping for bigger reforms, perhaps even including a true public option.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving these two collapses in a row in Colorado, the state regulators, the governor, they need to pay attention to this and understand that these are real people\u2019s lives and health on the line,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

estate agent Lauren Gibbs penciled out math equations to manage the complex transition from her now-defunct Friday Health Plans insurance plan to a new insurer.Andrew Kenney\/CPR News The state allowed those affected to buy new plans through a special enrollment period. But not everyone did so before their Friday Health policies expired on Aug. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28,1346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines","tag-health-insurance"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31762"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}