Invoices for Nevada exchange policies are sent out late

By Cy Ryan

Friday, Jan. 24, 2014 | 5:40 p.m.

There's another foul-up in the state's health insurance program and the $75 million private contractor that designed and set up Nevada's online insurance portal is being blamed for it.

The Silver State Health Insurance Exchange said today that Xerox State Healthcare failed to send out premium notices on time involving 13,000 Nevadans who joined the system.

The invoices show the premiums for February coverage were due Jan. 25, but the invoices were not sent out until after the payment due date.

C. J. Bawden, communications officer for the state's exchange, said there is a grace period that will extend to Feb. 24 for enrollees to make their payments for February coverage.

Xerox President Dave Hamilton said in a statement, "We identified the issue with billing earlier this week and worked around the clock to rectify it.

"We apologize that bills for this month are late and will send out March's invoices in a timely manner," Hamilton said.

On Jan. 9 it was revealed that the call centers to take the questions about the health insurance program were not working properly. Consumers complained they had to wait on the telephone line for 60 minutes for responses. And others said the lines were always busy.

Xerox told the board of directors of the exchange that 50 more people would be hired at the call centers to solve the problem and the standard response time would be three to five minutes by the end of this quarter.

On another matter not involving Xerox, Bawden said a "small number" of clients still have not received their authorization cards from the insurance companies. After enrolling with one of the four insurance companies, the individuals were supposed to receive their validation cards by Jan. 1 to show when visiting a doctor or hospital.

Nevada chose to run its own health insurance system to comply with the Affordable Care Act, rather than letting the federal government set up shop in the state.