To Our Valued Stakeholders,

As I reflect on the Open Enrollment Period so far, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for the response we’ve seen. Last week, on Get Covered Day, we reported that more than 184,000 people enrolled in a health plan so far. That figure is nearly 30 percent ahead of last year, and, for additional perspective, surpasses the total enrollments we saw by the end of Open Enrollment in 2021. And while we’re seeing large volumes of signups, we’re also seeing our smoothest enrollment year yet. People are getting through the enrollment process with ease online, over the phone, and with their Brokers or Assisters.

I want to express my sincerest thank you to you all, our valued stakeholders, who have worked diligently to increase access, affordability, and choice in health care coverage in Colorado. Because of you, more people can afford to cover themselves and their families and have peace of mind heading into the new year.

Reminder on Enrolling for January Coverage
As you may know, today is the deadline for Coloradans to enroll in a health insurance plan that begins Jan. 1, 2024. However, Colorado offers flexibility—what we call our “in-line extension”— to customers who started their plan enrollments or made changes by today to enroll up to two business days after the deadline. If you know someone who couldn’t complete their enrollment by today, please let them know they have until Tuesday, Dec. 19 at 6 p.m. to enroll, but they must call our Customer Service Center at 855-752-6749 to do so. We’re here to make the process as easy as possible for folks, so don’t hesitate to give us a call.

In the News
Last week, The Colorado Sun hosted a panel discussion with myself, Insurance Commissioner Mike Conway, and certified broker Meagan Fearing all about choosing the plan that’s best for you. You can share this guide for a summary of our tips and advice for this year.

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado

Thankful for the partners who make this success possible 

This week, we announced that our marketplace enrollments are up 27 percent from last year. Currently, 82 percent of people are qualifying for financial help. While we expect to see enrollment and financial help fluctuations over the next nine weeks, this pace could lead to our biggest enrollment year yet. I attribute this early success to our staff as well as our partners at the Division of Insurance, our network of community partners, and our enrollment partners.   

Thanks to the Division of Insurance and Health Insurance Affordability Enterprise, we were able to provide more people with financial help for our OmniSalud program. This program has been so impactful and become so popular that we ended up filling the maximum allotment of spots for financial help on the second day of Open Enrollment. The Enterprise also allows us to provide more financial help to people on our marketplace in the form of enhanced cost-sharing reductions. This year, people at higher income levels may be able to save thousands of dollars when they go to the doctor or get prescriptions, thanks to this innovative, state-funded program.  

I also want to express my deepest gratitude to our network of community partners and enrollment partners. They have put in countless hours to help Coloradans get the affordable, quality health coverage that they need. They are all an essential part of our marketplace work, and we could not do this without them. 

Help Us Spread the Word 

If you want to share about Open Enrollment with your constituents or community, please use our Open Enrollment Electronic Toolkit. The materials are web-friendly, easily readable, and interactive, and they are available in English and Spanish. 

In the News   

AARP release an in-depth guide on how to sign up for ACA health insurance in Colorado and what’s new for this year. 

Take care,  

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA  
Chief Executive Officer  
Connect for Health Colorado 

We are now just weeks away from the start of our next Open Enrollment Period and our staff is wrapping up all final preparations in advance of November 1^st. As we enter Open Enrollment, you should see the result of months of hard work in some important ways. First, you will see us spread the word with a new ad campaign and through social media. We are also adding materials to our collateral toolkit, which I encourage you to use to help us reach customers in your sphere of influence.

This year we also moved all Call Center operations in-house. I am excited that we can call everyone answering phones our colleagues and to serve our customers with this dedicated team. Our representatives are finalizing their training as we speak and will be ready for November 1.

Finally, throughout the past year, we have worked to fine-tune our technology and application system. The teams have done an exceptional job in resolving bugs and implementing proactive measures to ensure our system is ready for Open Enrollment traffic.

CoverCo

Last week we held our annual training conference, CoverCO, where nearly 600 attendees convened to learn critical information for Open Enrollment. Our speakers offered sessions on topics such as post enrollment support for OmniSalud enrollment, how to best assist mixed eligibility households, changes to immigrant health coverage, and hospital discounted care.

I was particularly inspired by my conversation with Jose Antonio Vargas, who shared his story about growing up as an undocumented immigrant in the United States. I was also moved by the story Robert Paylor shared with us, including his tools of resilience while living with quadriplegia.

We are grateful for everyone who joined us for another year of virtual CoverCO, and are thrilled to provide our brokers, assisters, and other stakeholders with the opportunity to learn from so many distinguished speakers.

In the News

I was pleased to see our friends at the Division of Insurance announced a 10% increase in SilverEnhanced Savings spots, which will give us the opportunity to enroll up to 11,000 people with enrollment assistance in the second year of OmniSalud.

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado

As the leader of this state’s health insurance marketplace, one of my roles is to ensure I understand the needs of Coloradans and that Connect for Health Colorado can serve residents in the best way possible. One way to do that is to get into communities, learn from you and learn from others.

Recently, some members of Connect for Health Colorado’s leadership team joined me for a two-day meeting with leaders from the Covered California team. It was invigorating to share learnings that each organization respectively can apply to its work.

For example, Covered California shared how they collect and use data about customer behavior within their application. Here in Colorado, we plan to expand our collection of analytics in the coming months and use the data for continuous improvement. Other discussions included our new OmniSalud program, how our call centers operate and how our staff stays engaged. Overall, there were lots of great ideas exchanged and learnings to take away.

Statewide Visits

This week I started my statewide visits to meet with community leaders. I traveled to Ft. Collins this week, I’ll be in Durango in a few weeks, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction in September. I look forward to these opportunities to connect.

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado

This week, the Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI) announced that they have asked the courts to move Friday Health Plans of Colorado into liquidation, which will end coverage for Friday Health Plans customers on August 31, 2023. 

As of the announcement Monday night, all Friday Health Plans customers can use a Special Enrollment Period to choose new coverage for the remainder of the year. We have been working closely with the DOI and jointly created this list of Frequently Asked Questions for Friday Health Plans customers. We ask that if you know of a Friday Health Plans customer, point them in the direction of a broker or enrollment center to pick a new plan.

This news of course is unnerving for Connect for Health Colorado customers, as well as our new Colorado Connect customers. I issued a statement reiterating that I am confident we have the enrollment support in place to help these customers enroll with another issuer partner to ensure they don’t experience a gap in coverage. We are also reaching out to everyone enrolled through the Marketplace in a Friday Health Plan to make sure they understand what they need to do.

Thank you to all our staff, enrollment network and to you for helping us get the word out about this so we keep Coloradans covered.

Initial Rates for Plan Year 2024 Released

The Colorado Division of Insurance released initial rates for the 2024 Plan Year. We will continue to monitor and prepare the final rates to be released in October before the Open Enrollment Period.

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado

Keeping Coloradans Covered all year is an important part of our mission. Our Community Partnership and Outreach team works throughout the year to connect with organizations and consumers around the state. In Denver, we’ve had a busy month supporting Juneteenth and Pride. But you may have also seen us at the Santa Fe Trail Days in Trinidad, Southern Colorado’s Juneteenth festival in Colorado Springs, and Copper Mountain’s BBQ challenge, just to name a few.

Throughout the summer, we will continue to participate in events around the state to remind Coloradans that we are the only place to get financial help with health insurance and that we have a network of Brokers and Assisters to help get them enrolled.

Next month, come see us at the Black Arts Festival in Denver, the El Paso County Fair or the Taste of Pikes Peak.

We’ll look forward to seeing you around!

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado

For the first time in more than three years, Coloradans who are no longer eligible for Health First Colorado (the state’s Medicaid program) or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) have started to lose their coverage. As people begin to lose Medicaid, we’re ramping up our joint efforts with State partners, community partners, and our enrollment network to keep Coloradans covered. Read more in a press release we issued this week.

As a reminder, people who lose Medicaid or CHP+ coverage will have a Special Enrollment Period through July 31, 2024 to sign up for other health coverage. Health coverage options for those losing Medicaid could include health insurance through a job, getting coverage through another family member’s plan, or buying a plan using our Marketplace.

Juneteenth

Help us celebrate at Denver’s Juneteenth Festival, Saturday and Sunday, June 17-18.  We’re hosting a block party on 25th and Welton Streets. Other organizations are joining us on the block with resources available to Coloradans. Denver’s very own DJ Squizzy will join us and you can get your exercise by participating in our family work out sessions with Thal Woods. We hope to see you there.

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado

Yesterday, the Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI) announced that Friday Health Plans would begin to wind down its business activities throughout the country, including in Colorado.

I issued a statement noting the DOI has confirmed that, based on the company’s current standing, Friday Health Plans of Colorado has sufficient capital to continue for the remainder of 2023. Current customers who are enrolled through Friday Health Plans on Connect for Health Colorado and Colorado Connect will continue to stay covered by their plan. We are staying closely aligned with the Division of Insurance as they continue to evaluate Friday Health Plans’ situation in Colorado.

Our network of Brokers and Assisters can help customers if they have questions about coverage this year.

In the News

The Colorado Sun covered the story about Friday Health Plans.

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado

Colorado’s legislative session wrapped up Monday, May 8^th for “sine die”, Latin for “without day.”

We participated in conversations related to health care throughout the session and remain committed to our implementation role for new legislation that has passed.  Most notably, legislation regarding Colorado Option plans (HB23-1224) tasks us with leading a stakeholder and customer research process to allow customers to more easily identify and compare Colorado Option plans on our platform. We look forward to working with Brokers, Assisters, advocates, issuers, and customers to ensure that our customers find the best plans for their needs.

No New Friday Health Plan Enrollments for 2023

The Colorado Division of Insurance announced in a consumer advisory that Friday Health Plans will not take new enrollments for Plan Year 2023 starting Tuesday, May 9. As a result of this, people in Colorado who are not already enrolled in a Friday Health plan won’t be able to select a Friday Health plan through Connect for Health Colorado or Colorado Connect. People who are already enrolled in a Friday Health plan for 2023 will continue to stay in their current plan.

I issued a statement about what this means, assuring current customers they will retain coverage.

The Denver Business Journal and Alamosa News wrote about this topic.

Take care,

Kevin Patterson, MURP, MPA
Chief Executive Officer
Connect for Health Colorado