Three weeks after the launch of the health insurance exchanges, federal officials said they are working around-the-clock to improve the functionality of the healthcare.gov website.
The Health and Human Services (HHS) department has been working to increase the site’s bandwidth to accommodate heavier-than-expected web traffic, improve the site’s architecture to make it easier for consumers to create online accounts, and ramp up testing of the system as each of the changes is made, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) spokeswoman Julie Bataille said during a press conference Oct. 24.
And the federal data hub, which provides information used in determining eligibility for tax credits, is performing well with responses in seconds, she said.
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"It is getting better every day," Ms. Bataille said. "We are making incremental improvements."
Consumers will notice a smoother and more consistent experience on healthcare.gov over time, Ms. Bataille said. And she added that consumers would be able to enroll in health insurance by Dec. 15 in order have coverage in place on Jan. 1.
The healthcare.gov site, which is the portal for accessing the 34 federally run health exchanges, has been plagued by glitches since its launch on Oct. 1, with consumers complaining that the site would freeze, go blank, or send error messages when they tried to create an account.
Some of those problems have been resolved, and more consumers are now able to create online accounts to apply for insurance, Ms. Bataille said.
In the first 3 weeks, consumers have completed about 700,000 applications for insurance across the state- and federally run health insurance exchanges, she said. That means that they have completed the application phase and received information on whether they are eligible for federal premium subsidies. However, Ms. Bataille said CMS would not release information on the number of people who have actually enrolled in health plans until November.
Federal officials are urging consumers who have trouble with the website to call 1-800-318-2596 instead. That hotline has received about 1.6 million calls since Oct. 1.