Covered California shares usage stats week after launch
Staffers for California’s new health care exchange pushed back on Tuesday against reports of glitches in the first week of open enrollment and instead claimed the system was exceeding expectations.
Californians completed more than 16,000 household applications for health plans through Covered California between Oct. 1 and Oct. 5, the first week of enrollment under the Affordable Care Act. The exchange’s call center also received roughly 59,000 phone calls, according to figures released Tuesday by the exchange, and more than 400 businesses have signed up for the Small Business Health Options Program.
Peter Lee, executive director of the exchange, said he was releasing the info to “silence doubters and prevent misinformation” a week after news outlets had reported Covered California’s website crashed for several hours on the first day of open enrollment last week.
Average wait times for phone calls exceeded 30 minutes, although they eventually dropped down to four minutes by end of the week.
The exchange also appeared to fumble when a Covered California board member claimed more than five million people had visited the web site on the first day. That number was later shown to be closer to 650,000. “Has it been perfect? Absolutely not,” said Lee. “Is it pretty darn good? Yes.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/10/08/covered-california-shares-usage-stats.html?ana=e_du_pub&s=article_du&ed=2013-10-08
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