Deadline looming to get health insurance in special enrollment period

CREATED 6:02 PM

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- It's the final countdown: Just 30 hours remain in the special enrollment period to get health insurance through the Nevada Health Exchange.

The special enrollment period is for people who tried, but failed, to get coverage during regular enrollment.

Health Exchange officials said to be safe and make sure you meet deadline, get in-person assistance from a broker or navigator. They can help you enter your information correctly, choose the right plan, and get around website glitches.

'Just in the past few days we've run into people having problems. We did a hot fix on the website last night just to make sure people get through,' said Health Exchange spokesperson CJ Bawdin.

Since the Board of Directors moved to drop Xerox, the company behind the embattled Health Link website, they made changes to ensure next year's enrollment process will be smoother. They're linking up with healthcare.gov, the federal site, which takes the middle-man out of the equation. Next enrollment period, payments will go directly to carriers.

Bawdin said a major lesson learned during this year's enrollment process is that people need in-person help to navigate the shopping experience. 'We're looking at holding more live enrollment events,' Bawdin told Action News.

So far about 49,000 people have enrolled in plans, and of that, about 35,000 people have actually paid. The original goal was 118,000 sign-ups, meaning the state has reached about one-third of it's goal.

Health Exchange officials said a surge in people qualified for Medicaid accounts for some of that gap, but the hope is with the new site next year enrollment will increase and the state will meet it's number.

As for the $12.5 million in taxpayer money that already went to Xerox, that's gone for now.

If you don't make it through before deadline because of website problems, you can submit an appeal.

Also, if you have a qualifying life event like the loss of a job or birth of a child, you can sign up before the next enrollment period, which begins Nov. 15.

A Health Exchange customer service representative will have to manually input your application in the case of a qualifying life event.