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Q: Will my health insurance cover the costs of coronavirus testing and treatment?
A: The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically impacted the world over the last year. A common question that people have is “How will my health insurance cover the coronavirus?”
The short answer? It depends. With the exception of Original Medicare, health insurance differs greatly in the U.S., depending on where you live and how you obtain your coverage. Including the District of Columbia, there are 51 different sets of state insurance rules, separate rules that apply to self-insured group plans (which are not regulated by the states), and 51 different Medicaid/CHIP programs.
Nearly half of all Americans – including a large majority of non-elderly Americans – get their health coverage from an employer. Those plans are regulated by a combination of state and federal rules, depending on the size of the group and whether it’s self-insured or fully-insured.
And about 6 percent of Americans buy their own health insurance in the individual market, where both state and federal rules apply.
Under the terms of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R.6201), Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance plans – including grandfathered plans – are required to fully cover the cost of COVID-19 testing, without any cost-sharing or prior-authorization requirements, for the duration of the emergency period (which has most recently been extended through mid-April 2021). That includes the cost of the lab services as well as the provider fee at a doctor’s office, urgent care clinic, or emergency room where the test is administered.
Since it’s a federal law, the requirements apply to both self-insured and fully-insured health plans, whereas the testing coverage requirements that numerous states have imposed (see examples here and here) are only applicable to fully insured plans.
Health plans that aren’t considered minimum essential coverage are not required to cover COVID-19 testing under the federal rules. This includes short-term health plans, fixed indemnity plans, and healthcare sharing ministry plans. It also includes the Farm Bureau plans in Tennessee, Iowa, Indiana, and Kansas – which are not considered health insurance and are specifically exempt from insurance regulations. But some of these plans are voluntarily covering COVID-19 testing and telehealth, so the specifics depend on the plan.
States have the power to regulate short-term health plans, and Washington, for example, extended its testing coverage requirements to include short-term health plans. (Washington already has very strict rules for short-term health plans). But in most states, most plans that aren’t minimum essential coverage are not required to cover COVID-19 testing.
The CARES Act (H.R.748, enacted in March 2020) requires all non-grandfathered health plans, including private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid, to cover COVID-19 vaccines without any cost-sharing for the member (the same caveats described above apply, however, as plans that aren’t regulated by the ACA are not included in the vaccine coverage requirement unless a state steps up and imposes its own requirement).
The full coverage of COVID-19 vaccines includes both the vaccine itself and any charges from the provider or facility for the administration of the vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccine has been added to the list of recommended vaccines, and the CARES Act required private health plans to begin fully covering it within 15 business days — much faster than the normal timeframe (which can be nearly two years, depending on the circumstances) between when a preventive care recommendation is made and when insurers have to cover it with no cost-sharing.
H.R.6201 allows states to use their Medicaid programs to cover COVID-19 testing for uninsured residents, and provides federal funding to reimburse providers for COVID-19 testing for uninsured patients. The CARES Act also provides funding to reimburse providers for the cost of administering COVID-19 vaccines to uninsured individuals.
It’s worth noting that people who don’t have minimum essential coverage are considered uninsured, so depending on availability, they would be eligible for covered testing and vaccines under these programs. In the weeks since the first COVID-19 vaccines were granted emergency use authorizations by the FDA, numerous state insurance departments have issued statements clarifying that residents will not have to pay for the vaccine, regardless of their insurance status.
Although the federal and state governments have stepped in decisively to ensure that most people won’t incur out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 testing and vaccines, the cost of treatment is a different matter altogether.
Although the majority of patients are able to recover without hospitalization, Harvard’s Global Health Institute estimates that about 20 percent of COVID-19 patients need to be hospitalized, and about 20 percent of hospitalized patients will need intensive care, including ventilators.
Inpatient care, including intensive care, is an essential health benefit for all ACA-compliant individual and small group health plans (but states define exactly what’s covered for each essential health benefit, so the specifics do vary from one state to another). And although large group plans are not required to cover essential health benefits, they are required to provide “substantial” coverage for inpatient care. If they don’t, the employer can be subject to a penalty under the ACA’s employer mandate, but about 5 percent of large employers still opt to offer scanty plans that don’t comply with this regulation and would offer little in the way of coverage for COVID-19 treatment.
But even when it’s covered by insurance, inpatient care is expensive. And so is outpatient care, depending on the scope of the care that’s needed. This is where patients’ cost-sharing comes into play. Under the ACA, all non-grandfathered, non-grandmothered health plans must have in-network out-of-pocket maximums that don’t exceed $8,550 for a single individual in 2021 (this limit doesn’t apply to plans that aren’t regulated by the ACA, such as short-term health plans).
So for most patients who need COVID treatment in 2021, out-of-pocket costs won’t exceed $8,550. But that’s still a huge amount of money, and most people don’t have it sitting around. The majority of health plans have out-of-pocket limits well below that amount, but most people are still going to be on the hook for a four-figure bill if they end up needing to be hospitalized for COVID-19. Although employer-sponsored plans tend to be more generous than the plans people buy in the individual market, the average employer-sponsored plan still had an out-of-pocket maximum of $4,039 for a single employee in 2020.
With that said, however, many insurers around the country have opted to waive, at least temporarily, members’ out-of-pocket costs related to COVID-19 treatment. It’s important to understand, however, that if an insurer is acting as an administrator for a self-insured employer-sponsored plan, the employer would have to agree to waive the cost-sharing, as it’s the employer’s money (as opposed to the insurance company’s money) that pays the claims.
Some states (New Mexico and Massachusetts are examples) stepped up early in the pandemic and issued guidance requiring state-regulated insurers to cover treatment (as well as testing) with no cost-sharing, and others (Minnesota is an example) have strongly encouraged insurers to do so (note that the regulation in Massachusetts only applies to doctor’s offices, urgent care centers, and emergency rooms, but not to inpatient care). In addition, several states are requiring telehealth treatment with no cost-sharing. But for the most part, people who need extensive treatment for COVID-19 are going to have to meet their health plan’s deductible and likely the out-of-pocket maximum, unless the insurer has agreed to waive these costs.
Many states are encouraging or requiring state-regulated insurers to treat COVID-19 testing and treatment as in-network, regardless of whether the medical providers are in the plan’s network. And federal rules require this for the vaccine as well, with the cost fully covered regardless of whether the member gets the vaccine from an in-network or out-of-network provider. For vaccine administration, providers are generally not allowed to seek any payment from the patient, including via balance billing. But for COVID-19 testing and treatment provided by out-of-network medical providers, patients could still be subject to balance billing in some circumstances as the out-of-network provider doesn’t have to accept the insurance company’s payment as payment-in-full if it’s less than the billed amount.
And although H.R.6201 prohibits insurance plans from requiring prior authorization for testing, insurers are still allowed to impose their normal prior authorization rules for other services, including COVID-19 treatment, unless a state otherwise prohibits it on state-regulated plans.
So what can you do to protect yourself as much as possible in terms of your health insurance coverage during this pandemic? Here are a few pointers:
Louise Norris is an individual health insurance broker who has been writing about health insurance and health reform since 2006. She has written dozens of opinions and educational pieces about the Affordable Care Act for healthinsurance.org. Her state health exchange updates are regularly cited by media who cover health reform and by other health insurance experts.
The post Will my health insurance cover the costs of coronavirus testing, vaccines, and treatment? appeared first on healthinsurance.org.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, and in many cases, that means losing health insurance as well. About half of all Americans get their health insurance from an employer’s plan, and it’s a cruel irony that so many people have lost their jobs in the midst of a time when we need health coverage more than ever. A Commonwealth Fund analysis found that by June 2020, nearly 15 million Americans had lost their employer-sponsored health insurance. And about 5.4 million of them became uninsured (as opposed to switching to another form of health coverage), resulting in the largest-ever increase in the uninsured rate.
But the good news is that loss of coverage triggers a special enrollment period during which you can buy ACA-compliant individual health insurance. You can buy your new coverage on- or off-exchange, although premium subsidies and cost-sharing reductions are only available through the exchange.
Loss of a job does not, in and of itself, trigger a special enrollment period. The special enrollment period only applies if you’re losing health coverage (the plan you had must have been minimum essential coverage – which all employer-sponsored plans are – and you can’t have voluntarily canceled the plan or lost it due to non-payment of premiums).
A drop in income that makes a person newly-eligible for financial assistance in the exchange will trigger a special enrollment period during which a person can switch plans – but that only applies if they already had minimum essential coverage in place before the income change.
If you’re uninsured, whether it’s a recent development or a long-term situation, you may still be able to obtain coverage for 2021. Here’s a summary of your options:
Click to see which states are offering special enrollment periods in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In most states, open enrollment for 2021 health plans ran from November 1 to December 15, 2020. This gave people an opportunity to sign up for new individual/family health coverage if they needed it. And in 10 states and DC, open enrollment is still underway as of early January 2021.
In addition, Maryland has opened another COVID-related special enrollment period for uninsured residents (people who don’t currently have minimum essential coverage), which will continue through March 15, 2021. Unlike normal enrollment period rules, Maryland is allowing retroactive coverage in some cases, and effective dates that are never more than two weeks after the enrollment is submitted.
Maryland previously offered a COVID special enrollment period that ran from March to December in 2020. Most of the other fully state-run exchanges also offered special enrollment periods in 2020 to address the COVID pandemic, allowing people without health coverage a chance to sign up without having to wait for open enrollment or experience a specific qualifying event. But with the exception of Maryland, those windows are no longer ongoing.
Most states use HealthCare.gov, which is run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Throughout 2020, the Trump administration refused to open a special enrollment period through HealthCare.gov – despite the fact that several states that use the federally run exchange asked HHS to do so. The Biden administration might open a COVID-related special enrollment period after taking office in January 2021; this is one of the recommendations that state insurance commissioners have made to President-elect Biden, and it’s well within the scope of immediate changes the incoming administration could make to ensure more people are covered.
The takeaway point here is that if you’re uninsured, you’ll want to check to see if open enrollment is ongoing in your state (it continues through the end of January in a few states), and keep an eye out to see if a COVID-related special enrollment period becomes available via HealthCare.gov. If you’re eligible to enroll — either because the exchange is offering an extended enrollment period or a special enrollment period, or because you’ve experienced a qualifying event — it’s in your best interest to enroll in an ACA-compliant plan as quickly as possible.
If you’re in a state where open enrollment has ended, you’ll need to have a qualifying event in order to enroll in coverage. Our guide to qualifying events and special enrollment periods covers all of the details about how these work, including rules for effective dates and prior coverage requirements.
And if your income has taken a hit, know that if you enroll in a plan through the exchange during a special enrollment period, you may qualify for financial assistance (premium subsidies and cost-sharing subsidies). Use this subsidy calculator to estimate the size of your subsidy.
For most qualifying events, your coverage will take effect either the first of the next month, or the first of the month after that, depending on how late in the month you enroll. Typically, if you enroll during the first 15 days of the month, your coverage will take effect on the first day of the next month. Enroll after the 15th and coverage won’t kick in until the first of the following month.
But the effective date rules are different if your qualifying event is the loss of your existing health coverage. If you’re losing your coverage, you can enroll up until the last day you have coverage and your new plan will take effect the first of the following month. Since health plans usually terminate on the last day of a month, this means you can have seamless coverage in most cases, as long as you enroll by the day that your old plan ends, and assuming your old plan is ending on the last day of the month (if your plan is ending on a day other than the last day of the month, it will likely not be possible to have seamless coverage unless you’re able to qualify for Medicaid). So for example, if you’re getting laid off and your employer-sponsored coverage is going to end on January 31, you have until January 31 to enroll in a new plan (on- or off-exchange) and your coverage will take effect August 1.
It’s important to understand that in many cases, you’re only eligible for a special enrollment period if you already had some sort of minimum essential coverage in place before the qualifying event – this is obviously true if your qualifying event is loss of coverage, but it’s also true for several other qualifying events. You can read more about the rules for each type of qualifying event here.
Native Americans can enroll in plans through the exchange year-round, although the coverage doesn’t take effect until the first of the next month or the first of the month after that, depending on the enrollment date. As is the case with special enrollment periods, Native Americans must enroll by the 15th to have coverage effective the first of the next month.
Not eligible for a SEP or Medicaid (or CHIP, a Basic Health Program, Medicare, etc.)? Unless a blanket COVID special enrollment period is opened via HealthCare.gov (and other state-run exchanges follow suit), you’ll have to wait until next fall’s open enrollment to buy coverage, and the plan won’t take effect until next January. But as described below, a short-term health insurance plan might still be an option, and it would allow you to have coverage this year.
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Millions of Americans have faced a sudden drop in income as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the majority of the states have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which allows residents with low income (up to 138 percent of the poverty level) to enroll in Medicaid.
Medicaid enrollment is year-round, as is CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) enrollment. And CHIP eligibility extends to higher income levels than Medicaid. For both Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, income is calculated on a monthly basis, so they are available if your current income is within the eligible range – even if your income later in the year is expected to be much higher.
Medicaid coverage can also be immediate, or backdated to the first of the month or even a previous month, depending on the state and the circumstances. (States can seek federal approval to eliminate prior month retroactive coverage availability, and some have done so under the Trump administration). So you won’t have to wait for your Medicaid coverage to take effect.
In states that have not expanded Medicaid, coverage is not available based solely on income; low-income residents have to also meet other criteria, such as being pregnant, caring for minor children, being elderly, or being disabled. But if you’re facing a loss of income, you’ll want to check with your state’s Medicaid program to see if you might be eligible for coverage.
When your income picks back up in the future and makes you ineligible for Medicaid, that will trigger a loss-of-coverage special enrollment period during which you can enroll in a private individual market plan or an employer-sponsored plan if one is available to you. Note that in order to qualify for the additional federal Medicaid funding that’s being provided to states to address the COVID-19 pandemic, states cannot take action to terminate Medicaid coverage until after the COVID-19 emergency ends. Your Medicaid coverage can be terminated if you request it — perhaps because you become eligible for a new employer’s plan, or your income increases enough to make you eligible for premium subsidies in the exchange — or if you move out of state. But otherwise, your Medicaid coverage should continue until the end of the COVID-19 emergency period. If you request a termination or move out of state, however, your Medicaid coverage will end and that will trigger a special enrollment period during which you can sign up for a private plan.
This federal poverty level calculator will help you determine whether you meet the Medicaid eligibility level for your state. Your eligibility for ACA subsidies also depends on your income and percentage of the federal poverty level (FPL).
For millions of Americans who aren’t eligible for a SEP or Medicaid, buying a short-term medical plan offers the fastest way to get some level of coverage in place. Short-term plans aren’t ACA-compliant, but can still provide protection from catastrophic medical expenses – and you can purchase the plans at any time during the year.
That means you could buy a short-term plan today and – if you’re approved through the underwriting process – you could have coverage in force as soon as tomorrow.
Short-term coverage is temporary, but federal regulations now allow short-term plans to have initial terms of up to 364 days, and total duration, including renewals, of up to three years. Many states have their own rules, however, that limit short-term plans to shorter durations than the federal rules allow.
Many short-term health plans have voluntarily agreed to waive cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing. But the general rules that the federal government imposed to require insurers to fully pay for COVID-19 testing and COVID-19 vaccines do not apply to short-term plans, so their actions on this are voluntary rather than mandated (unless a state takes action to further regulate short-term plans). And although many ACA-compliant health plans agreed to temporarily waive cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment in 2020 (as opposed to just testing, as required by law), very few short-term plans agreed to take this step.
And the basic rules of thumb for short-term plans still apply: Pre-existing conditions are generally not covered at all, and insurers will tend to look back at your medical records if and when you have a claim, to make sure that the claim isn’t related to any condition you might have had before enrolling. Short-term plans are also not required to cover the ACA’s essential health benefits, which means that some of the treatment you might need for COVID-19 (or other conditions) might not be covered at all by the plan. Many short-term plans do not, for example, cover outpatient prescription drugs. Others place limits on how much they’ll pay for inpatient hospital care.
New York and Minnesota have Basic Health Programs (the Essential Plan and MinnesotaCare), both of which offer year-round enrollment and are available to residents with income up to 200 percent of the poverty level.
Massachusetts has a program called ConnectorCare, which is available to residents with income up to 300 percent of the poverty level. ConnectorCare enrollment is available year-round, but only for people who are newly eligible or who haven’t enrolled previously.
If you’re in one of these states and have an eligible income, you may still be able to sign up for coverage regardless of what time of year it is.
Louise Norris is an individual health insurance broker who has been writing about health insurance and health reform since 2006. She has written dozens of opinions and educational pieces about the Affordable Care Act for healthinsurance.org. Her state health exchange updates are regularly cited by media who cover health reform and by other health insurance experts.
The post How to buy health insurance during the COVID-19 crisis appeared first on healthinsurance.org.
