Long waits frustrate callers to health exchanges
In this Feb. 26, 2014 photo, Jacki and David Manley pose with their son Tyndale, age 2, in their home in Keedysville, Md. Jacki Manley has been trying since mid-December to enroll in a health plan through Maryland's health exchange. With a child who is almost 3 and another who is 5 months, the 20 minutes the stay-at-home mom can spare on hold have not been enough. She estimates she has reached someone at the Maryland call center three out of about a dozen times she has called, but then she gets passed between different people and cannot get definitive answers to her questions. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)Patrick Semansky/Associated Press
Annapolis, Md. -- For those trying to enroll through online health exchanges, help has long been advertised as just a phone call away.
Yet the challenge in some states has been trying to get a call through at all, never mind the multiple transfers once contact has been made.
Long wait times of an hour or more have been commonplace in some states, primarily those running their own health care exchanges. California, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada and Washington are among the states in which consumers and insurance agents have complained. One consequence is that people just give up because they are unable to wait indefinitely.
"If I had to use one word, I'd use 'frustrating,' " said Jacki Manley, a stay-at-home mom in the western Maryland town of Keedysville, who has been trying since mid-December to enroll in a health plan through that state's health exchange.
Manley said she now uses Facebook to try to get the help she needs.
The telephone frustration is just one more obstacle consumers are facing as the March 31 deadline for open enrollment approaches. Technical glitches and software meltdowns on the federal and some state-run exchanges deterred many people from signing up after enrollments under the federal Affordable Care Act began in October.
With many of those technical problems solved, enrollments across the country have been brisk since the start of the year. Yet even with 4 million signed up for policies through the exchanges, the Obama administration will be challenged to meet its own projection of 7 million enrollees by the deadline.
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Long wait times for consumers won't help.
In California, an operational review of the state-run exchange's first three months showed consumers waiting 45 minutes to an hour for an employee to answer, and insurance agents have said they have waited hours to make human contact.
Wait times for call centers on the federal marketplace that is running in 36 states have been much shorter to reach a customer service representative. The average wait time was down to 38 seconds in November.
Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said the exchange is not making excuses and is working hard to reduce wait times.
"We've heard their concerns," Lee said. "We've stepped up to say we're going to make it right."