Manatt's Joel Ario, a managing director with Manatt Health Solutions, spoke to AISHealth about the progress being made to fix errors on 834-enrollment forms, which are used by health plans to sign up people for coverage.
AISHealth reports that since the beginning of the month, the percentage of "missing" 834 forms—those that have been transmitted to insurers—has been close to zero. Between October 1 and December 5, fewer than 15,000 forms didn't get through to insurers. The figure of missing 834s dropped to 0.38% from November 24 to December 5. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says the improvements are due to the technical fixes put in place at the end of November.
Ario told the publication that progress is being made. "I'm hearing from all quarters that it's improving," said Ario.
He added, however, that even the rate of 0.38% for missing 834s still means that one out of every 300 forms is not good. "So obviously you want to continue to improve on that," Ario said. "The question will be how do you identify the ones that aren't right and get them cleaned up? And then there is the past cleanup. It's not completely out of the woods, but it's not the major problem."