While this year's online health exchange rollout was radically smoother than its initial run, HealthCare.gov is still working through some technical issues on its back-end, according to a Politico report.
This week, the Obama administration announced 11.4 million people have signed up for health insurance through the online exchange. However, the system still requires a series of manual workarounds that cost time and money, according to the report.
One of the main issues, according to the report, is that subsidy payments aren't automated, so payers receive payments based on estimates derived from manually filling out a spreadsheet and telling HHS how much money they should be receiving.
Another manual process is the reconciliation of enrollment information between health plans and HHS for consumers re-enrolling in the same plan, according to the report.
However, the report indicates HealthCare.gov is more unfinished than broken. "CMS has focused on improving operational efficiency and the consumer experience while building the back-end system," said CMS spokesman Aaron Albright in the report. "We continue to add new back-end functionality, and we are closely managing the work to ensure it is completed in 2015."
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