The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says that, as far as it's concerned, an insurer should have up until Halloween to tell Affordable Care Act public exchange plan enrollees about a decision to pull an individual product from the market in 2018.
Officials at the Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight, arm of CMS, announced that position Thursday in a new batch of guidance.
The open enrollment period for 2018 individual coverage is set to run from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15.
The Affordable Care Act requires an insurer to warn enrollees at least 90 days before dropping the product they're using. For a product going away Jan. 1, 2018, the official 90-day advance notice deadline is Oct. 3.
This year, however, as long as an issuer provides a product withdrawal notice by Oct. 31 — the day before the start of the open enrollment period — "CMS will not take enforcement action against an issuer for failing to send a product discontinuation notice with respect to individual market coverage at least 90 days prior to the discontinuation," officials say.
The guidance applies to issuers of individual public exchange plans.
90-Day Notice Rule
