LA HAP Bulletin for 12/20/18

Year-end considerations for LA HAP clients

Opportunities to enroll in 2018 coverage after the December 15th deadline

• Residents of hurricane-affected parishes can take advantage of a Special Enrollment Period until December 31st to enroll in coverage. They must attest to their residency but do not need to have been directly affected by the hurricane themselves. This SEP applies to both Marketplace and Medicare consumers.
• See Alicia’s email from 12/18/17 for a more complete summary of available SEPs.

Office closures throughout the holidays

• The LA HAP office will be closed December 25th-26th and January 1st-2nd.
• The HIP office will be closed December 22nd-25th and December 29th-January 1st.
• As we may have limited staff in both offices between closure dates, please be patient with our response times. Fax lines will remain open in both offices throughout the holidays.

AlwaysCare policies

Several clients were enrolled into new 2018 AlwaysCare dental policies after being mistakenly informed that their 2017 policies were inactive. In these instances, AlwaysCare will maintain the existing policy and not effectuate the new one. If you submitted an Insurance Add/Change Form on a client’s behalf for one of these policies, you will be informed of this via fax and will not need to take further action.

Last-minute paperwork

Please continue to send any Insurance Add/Change Forms, premium invoices and other documents to LA HAP/HIP and we will address them as we are able. LA HAP and HIP staff will do everything within their power to ensure timely payments for January policies, but please keep in mind that insurer payment deadlines, expired LA HAP eligibility and other factors may affect our ability to make payments when paperwork is received after the deadline.

Accessing care in December and January

We strongly encourage all clients who are making changes to their coverage in 2018 to fill medications in December and avoid scheduling non-urgent provider visits in early January. In the past, we have seen that it often takes insurers several weeks to issue new cards and policy documents to their thousands of new members. Keep in mind that LA HAP cannot reimburse clients for any medical or pharmaceutical costs which they pay themselves.