Your office may be seeing an influx of newly insured patients who purchased their health insurance through either a state or federal health care exchange. Despite the positive impact of more insured patients, it may be difficult to verify their coverage, as they may have been insured for only a very short time or may not have a card or other documentation from their health plan yet.
Tips to Verify Patient's Benefits and Coverage
If your state has chosen to run its own health care exchange, you will need to contact your state.
Find your state’s information
If your state has chosen to use the federal exchange, the best way to obtain needed information is to contact your patient’s health plan.
List of plans by state and a
fact sheet to assist you in using the database.
In addition, the federal government’s website,
www.healthcare.gov, has information and educational resources available.
Patients have until March 31, 2014, to sign up for health care coverage. Many uninsured will qualify for some type of financial assistance as well.
Look for more tips on working with health exchanges in the upcoming
AANEM News, due out in February. In the meantime, if you have specific questions or need additional help, please email the AANEM policy department at
policy@aanem.org .