The state's health insurance exchange needs millions of dollars more than first projected for its customer service call center in order to become fiscally sustainable by the end of the year.
That’s because Connect for Health Colorado spent a disproportionate amount of money on roughly 5 percent of customers who got snagged by glitches when they tried to sign up for insurance.
Dr. Mike Fallon, the board’s secretary, says the exchange’s sustainability depends on fixing the system.
“We require administrative fees, i.e. customers, to pay our bills and if we lose our margin, we’re done,” he explained.
Connect for Health enrolled more than 140,000 customers in the second year of open enrollment under Obamacare.
But half of its calls and many of its problem sign-ups involved Medicaid enrollees.
The exchange board plans to do a performance audit of its technical systems to get a better handle on the problems.
