UnitedHealthcare Opens Door to New Enrollment for Employers

UnitedHealthcare will open a special enrollment period for some of its existing commercial customers to enable people to get coverage in response to the Covid-19 emergency.

The Minnetonka, Minn.-based company, the country’s largest health insurer, said it is easing contractual requirements for its fully insured customers to offer a special enrollment opportunity for employees who didn’t sign up for coverage during the regular enrollment period. The enrollment period will be open from March 23 to April 6, 2020. Insurers assume all risk and pay all claims in a fully funded plan.

In addition, self-funded customers—companies that pay for most of their own claims but use insurers like UnitedHealthcare to administer their plans—may choose to amend their eligibility requirements to align with the special enrollment period, UnitedHealthcare said.

UnitedHealthcare’s action appears to be one of the first instances of insurers acting on their own to allow people to sign up for coverage outside of normal open enrollment periods.

Separately, health insurance trade associations and Democrats in Congress have pushed the Trump administration to hold a special enrollment period for the federal Obamacare exchanges. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have allowed special open enrollment periods in their exchanges to try to get more people signed up for coverage in the face of the pandemic.

Easing Hospital Transfers

In addition to providing new opportunities for people to get health coverage, insurers are working to make it easier for hospitals to transfer patients to other types of medical facilities to manage high numbers of patients with Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

“Patients who can be treated safely in alternate sites of care for post‐acute care services should be quickly moved to those facilities,” the board of directors of America’s Health Insurance Plans said in a statement Monday night.

Inpatient hospitals in areas with capacity challenges should be allowed to transfer Covid-19 patients to alternative post-acute care facilities without advanced approval, it said.

The AHIP directors said they “strongly” encouraged “all health insurance providers to adopt and implement this
approach during this current public health emergency.”

The alternative sites could include home health, long-term acute care hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities, AHIP said.

Discharging and receiving facilities would only need to notify health insurance providers the following business day, AHIP said.

Matching Medicare Waivers

The AHIP board also said it would match Medicare waivers previously provided by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The waivers provide relief on a number of fronts, including prior-authorization and provider-enrollment requirements, suspension of nursing home pre-admission reviews, and enabling reimbursement to providers for care delivered in alternative settings, according to a statement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Cigna announced Monday that it is waving prior authorizations for the transfer of its non-Covid-19 customers from acute inpatient hospitals to in-network, long-term acute care hospitals. The policy will remain in place through May 31 and applies to Cigna commercial and Medicare Advantage plans, it said.

Cigna has also waived prior authorizations for the transfer of its patients to other in-network subacute facilities, including skilled nursing facilities and acute rehab centers, it said.