Three weeks after Obamacare’s botched online opening, the Department of Health and Human Services is calling in a “tech surge” cavalry.
On Sunday, HHS issued a 600-word blog post acknowledging the countless technical troubles with the site and saying it was bringing in a team of experts from both inside and outside the government in what it calls a “tech surge” to try to fix the issues that have arisen since the difficult birth of www.healthcare.gov after signups went into effect Oct. 1.
“Unfortunately, the experience on HealthCare.gov has been frustrating for many Americans,” the post says. “Some have had trouble creating accounts and logging in to the site, while others have received confusing error messages, or had to wait for slow page loads or forms that failed to respond in a timely fashion. The initial consumer experience of HealthCare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people. We are committed to doing better.”
The post goes on to say that it has been working around the clock to make fixes, updating the site several times with new code. It also said it implemented a virtual “waiting room,” but says that many consumers have found the experience to be confusing.
“Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov,” the blog post goes on to say. “We’re also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them. We are also defining new test processes to prevent new issues from cropping up as we improve the overall service and deploying fixes to the site during off-peak hours on a regular basis.”
HealthCare.gov has been plagued with technical issues from day one, leaving many to wonder whether it has been able to enlist any applicants. It has brought calls by some for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to step down.
HHS said over the weekend that 19 million unique users have visited the site, and 476,000 applications have been received. What’s unclear, however, is how many applicants have gone through the entire process and now are fully enrolled in a health insurance plan.
Nor is it clear how many of those 476,000 applications were received online or via phone conversations. HHS said that roughly half the applications came from the 36 states where they are handling enrollment, while the rest came from states operating their own health exchanges. The site has been altered to more easily offer an option for consumers to apply by phone.
President Obama is expected to address the issue at a Rose Garden conference today.
Follow Russ Britt on Twitter @russbrittmktw
Follow Health Exchange on Twitter @MWHealthBlog
On Sunday, HHS issued a 600-word blog post acknowledging the countless technical troubles with the site and saying it was bringing in a team of experts from both inside and outside the government in what it calls a “tech surge” to try to fix the issues that have arisen since the difficult birth of www.healthcare.gov after signups went into effect Oct. 1.
“Unfortunately, the experience on HealthCare.gov has been frustrating for many Americans,” the post says. “Some have had trouble creating accounts and logging in to the site, while others have received confusing error messages, or had to wait for slow page loads or forms that failed to respond in a timely fashion. The initial consumer experience of HealthCare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people. We are committed to doing better.”
The post goes on to say that it has been working around the clock to make fixes, updating the site several times with new code. It also said it implemented a virtual “waiting room,” but says that many consumers have found the experience to be confusing.
“Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov,” the blog post goes on to say. “We’re also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them. We are also defining new test processes to prevent new issues from cropping up as we improve the overall service and deploying fixes to the site during off-peak hours on a regular basis.”
HealthCare.gov has been plagued with technical issues from day one, leaving many to wonder whether it has been able to enlist any applicants. It has brought calls by some for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to step down.
HHS said over the weekend that 19 million unique users have visited the site, and 476,000 applications have been received. What’s unclear, however, is how many applicants have gone through the entire process and now are fully enrolled in a health insurance plan.
Nor is it clear how many of those 476,000 applications were received online or via phone conversations. HHS said that roughly half the applications came from the 36 states where they are handling enrollment, while the rest came from states operating their own health exchanges. The site has been altered to more easily offer an option for consumers to apply by phone.
President Obama is expected to address the issue at a Rose Garden conference today.
Follow Russ Britt on Twitter @russbrittmktw
Follow Health Exchange on Twitter @MWHealthBlog