You might remember that the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff was one of the reporters on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services conference call Monday. She asked four times (without an answer) what the 834 transmission error rate was. “834” forms contain the personal information for individuals who have signed up for health insurance and the details on their plan choices; in other words, the information insurers need to insure them.
Today, an administration official revealed to The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn that the error rate is now estimated at 10 percent, down from 25 percent in October.
Feds say 25% error rate for "back end" of http://t.co/25y1SOfdCF in Oct/Nov, now at 10% http://t.co/V0Co5lWYZC
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) December 6, 2013
…one administration official tells The New Republic that preliminary estimates, just now becoming available, suggest the error rate has fallen from one in four during October to one in ten now. And most of those are files insurers received with errors, as opposed to files insurers never received. Plenty of work remains — namely, completing repairs that reduce the error rate further and dealing with the flawed data insurers have already received.
So HHS, which has been refusing to tell journalists about the 834 error rate, gives TNR an exclusive to say it's down to 10%?
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 6, 2013
A 10% error rate is horrible
— Jon Walker (@JonWalkerDC) December 6, 2013
Yeah, it is pretty bad. At best, an error rate of one in ten files should amount to hundreds of thousands of erroneous files, which could lead to some nasty surprises as Americans head to the doctor in January with their new Obamacare plans.
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https://twitter.com/DrChilicat/status/409111635073437696
Celebrating a 10% error rate on 834 forms seems odd. 1m enrollments and you have 100,000 potentially major problems
— Sam Stein (@samstein) December 6, 2013
Note that a 10% error rate on 834s is still quite high. Also, tracking down missing data harder if enrollments surge.
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) December 6, 2013
An ongoing error rate of 10% still means thousands upon thousands of people going forward will erroneously think they are enrolled.
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 6, 2013
Good news for WH: 834 error rate falls from 25 to 10%. Bad news: That's still thousands of screwed up files. http://t.co/lXu7fd3MEQ
— Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff) December 6, 2013
Wasn’t this all supposed to have been fixed by now?
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