ACA Exchange Draft Regulation Drops — Later Than Insurers Would’ve Liked

by Leslie Small

On Jan. 31, CMS released the 2021 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters (NBPP), which is the annual omnibus regulation that outlines the rules of the game for Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange plans. But that was only after a trade group for safety-net health plans sent a strongly worded letter warning the Trump administration that the clock is ticking for issuers to finalize their 2021 premiums and benefit designs.

In its Jan. 27 letter, the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP) complained to CMS that the proposed 2021 NBPP "appears to be stalled at the Office of Management and Budget." (The OMB completed its review of the regulation on Jan. 29.) Insurers need to submit qualified health plan (QHP) applications starting in early May, ACAP pointed out. "Building in a minimum 30-day comment period in addition to 30 days for the Department to review, revise, and release the final [rule] would allow just one month for issuers to operationalize and implement necessary updates," the group wrote. "This timeframe will not allow issuers sufficient time to prepare products and operations for Benefit Year 2021."

Fritz Busch, an actuary with Milliman Inc., tells AIS Health that the final NBPP has come out in April during the past two years, but before that arrived much earlier. The delay of the NBPP "presents operational challenges for a lot of plans, because so many plans are right in the middle of doing their pricing and other planning for the year," he adds.

As for the content of the draft NBPP, the most attention-grabbing proposed changes to the rules surrounding subsidy eligibility. CMS said it’s seeking public comment on "new automatic re-enrollment processes for enrollees whose share of the premium after applying premium subsidies is $0, in order to reduce the risk of incorrect expenditures on subsidies that cannot be recovered through reconciliation." In addition, "periodic data matching standards would be amended to help ensure premium subsidies are not inappropriately paid to enrollees who are determined to be deceased, or dually eligible for Medicare."

From Health Plan Weekly