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The overall reputation of Covered California reflects significant dissatisfaction among customers, primarily due to a confusing enrollment process, unreliable website functionality, and inadequate support from customer service representatives. Many users express frustration over billing issues, lack of clear communication, and the challenges of navigating the health insurance landscape. While some customers acknowledge the importance of the service for tax purposes, the prevailing sentiment is one of disappointment with the quality of coverage and accessibility to healthcare providers. Improvements in user experience and customer support could enhance customer satisfaction and trust in the service.
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First, they told me that I qualified for Medical and would not help me. Medical denied my claim so I thought I was paying my premium myself. I found out that wasn't true when I filed for taxes and the federal government took out of my return the amount coveredCA paid.
Now, unaware I had to call a month before my premium is to be cancelled, I have a bill for my premium. I called and no one could change the date of cancellation to be the day before my company starting paying for my premium. I had to file a complaint which can take 60 days before I hear anything. Meanwhile, I still have a bill for a premium that I do not need which will affect my credit score. Thanks for your help!
This isn't even insurance. It's a fleecing scam. Worthless policies that benefit everyone EXCEPT the public. You'll get better healthcare from Walmart or by going to Tijuana nowadays.
CRAPY site. CRAPY service. CRAPY insurance.
Crap information in...crap service out.
Bait and switch. You apply to ask if you qualify for subsidies for this crap insurance...and they automatically enroll you into BigBrother Medi-Cal. NO ONE qualifies for Covered California (Obama Care) financial assistance. It's all a scam to get you enrolled into a State plan that you can not "unenroll" from.
Call your lawyer before using this site.
$1275 bill from Kaiser saying that Covered Ca is not going to cover me anymore because I moved. This "notification" was sent to me via mail and must of been lost in transit because I didn't receive it. Getting a notice that I will be billed $1275 is not something I would overlook considering I have not had a job in a few months and could not afford a bill like that. After over 5 hours of calling back and forth and getting the runaround I demanded a supervisor (Lisa) and they were the most worthless, rude and condescending supervisor I've talked to in my 45 years on this earth. I know this review may not mean much, but hopefully one day someone will see this that can do something about this broken system. Meanwhile, I now have to dispute the charge on my card which is not the way I wanted to handle this situation. No one has a backbone anymore and it is sad.
Let's be clear. The state of healthcare in the US is an utter disgrace. I would not have insurance AT ALL were it not for the ACA, and would now likely be dead. Yes, premiums are out of control. Yes, coverage is dwindling. But did I mention that I'm still alive? That, and I've had (almost) universally excellent customer service from the Covered CA staff, who surely are on the receiving end of a lot of misplaced anger. Keep up the good work, and here's hoping it gets better!
Health Insurance through CoveredCA should had never been approved base on a person's gross income. Since all patients monthly premiums are paid directly to their health insurance plans and not Covered California. Also people whose income is low that should be optional if they want to apply for Medi-cal benefits.
It's only useful for not getting screwed on your taxes.
Weeks and weeks to book an appointment.
At the end of the year make sure they aren't sneaking your premiums up.
Last year blue shield tried to charge me 300$ a month for their non existent coverage.
Parasites
No one can help, I can't enroll at all They will not help at all. I'm so frustrated. Lots of case numbers to reference ZERO help. I don't know why these people are there.
I am so grateful for covered California. I have Kaiser Permanente Silver and I'm very happy with the care and my out of pocket expenses are reasonable. I worked for a company that offered Healthcare and it cost more than my plan does now and I have the freedom to be self employed... and I'm earning more money than I did, too.
I despise Blue Shield of CA Covered California. Very few doctors accept Covered California because they pay insultingly low fees to doctors. I have 2 good doctors who accept this insurance and I feel ashamed that they lose money accepting me and my crap insurance. One doctor complains bitterly about it and I suspect I will be losing his services soon. Blue Shield of CA Covered Calif has collected over 100k in premiums for me over the years & paid out almost nothing. Now that I have a severe health issue, I am finding there are no good specialists who accept Covered California policies. I am paying high premiums yet paying out of pocket for almost everything. As a newly disabled person, I can't afford to pay out of pocket yet I must if I want care. Blue Shield must think doctors order MRIs just for fun. Why does Blue Shield have to approve a doctor ordered test? Why should doctors answer to pencil pushers? This prior authorization policy for anything that costs over $100 ishould be illegal. Doctors know what is medically necessary, insurance companies know what costs them money. The only one benefitting from Blue Shield insurance is their CEO who makes 3.6 million. I guess that is their reward for denying health care to people who are suffering and who truly need help. I need help so badly and no way is Blue Shield Covered California going to do anything except call necessary procedures investigational and deny healthcare. I don't blame doctors for refusing to be paid crap by Covered California policies. Seriously, my plumber and a/c repairman make more money than Blue Shield Coveref Calif pays my doctors. Get rid of insurance companies, they have ruined healthcare.
Bureaucratic nightmare! This is not affordable at all. Plans are horrible. Middle-age people are screwed. Too young for Medicare. Too old for Medi-Cal. Medi-Cal is also awful.Deductibles are extremely high. No real choices. This is fake insurance. Just get a PPO with the highest deductible. Save your money and pay cash out-of-pocket to the doctors. Don't even bother with the scam insurance unless it's an emergency situation and even then it's a bureaucratic nightmare. We get a lot worse care and pay a lot more money. Thank you Obama care thank you governor Newsom. Thank you for screwing people who really need help. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
Below is a list of my discoveries while insured under CoveredCA.
-Website is more vague than helpful. I found this out the hard way during tax time.
-The plans are horrible. High premiums, Low coverage.
-If you don't report any changes to your salary during the first 6 months you obtain insurance, they will drop your coverage; and it may effect your taxes for the following year.
-If you get a salary increase, the premium triples. Even if you are the sole income earner in your family.
-If you make too much (ie $1 over poverty level), you won't get the credit.
-Calling in to get any support is a joke. Don't bother.
Covered California does not work for us living in the ******* Needles area an unincorporated area of San Bernardino. We have to drive 4 hours to see a specialist at Loma Linda. We are closer to Arizona, but oh no, it can't be used there. I have become a cash paying customer. If you go In to edit your income, it won't retain what you entered, it will use the old amount. I got Blue shield instead, what a mistake. I was bounced back and forth between covered California and blue shield
The system is a nightmare. God help you if you have insurance obtained through Covered CA because-- you'll probably be sick or dead after navigating the RI-DIC-U-LOUS number of mistakes, mishaps, and sheer lunatic backwardness that occur within the CalHeers platform and during an application process. My experience has been similar to other expressed experiences- "the County" REPEATEDLY makes unnecessary and unwarranted changes to the application without my knowledge or consent. No one can explain why this happens-- Covered CA blames "the County," and "the County" blames Covered California. The Consumer is left at the short end of the stick and forced to navigate weeks' worth of phone calls and bureaucratic cyclical-cycle nonsense. Trying to resolve issues becomes a full-time job for me as a Consumer. Nothing ever ultimately gets resolved. My experiences have been so horrific that I've vowed not to use the Covered CA exchange ever again.
The county and the agencies waste peoples time. Take you in circles, change your income in their system, cause too many errors and on top of that you end up paying fraudulent cost and its their fault or on purpose they cause you many problems so you dont be able to use your health plan but just pay them monthly high prjces that at some point you end up paying late but they block you from usong the health insurance until you pay them what they want. And to make it cute.You dont pay for insurance then IRS or California government punishes you with a fine that will be charged as a penalty fron your taxes. FRAUD simply as that and no one cares to help us.
How to resolve any issues caused by Covered CA process or web site:
1. Request internal escalation by Covered CA. If that is denied (usually by a personnel who does not want to listen to you and could be rude) go to the next step -
2. File a complaint on the Covered CA web site.
Most likely that will be denied as well by a very uncooperative and rather rude person.
Then...
3. Open a case with the California State Fair Hearing Board (acms.bss.ca.gov) or phone 8 0 0.7 4 3 8 5 2 5
There you will find yourself talking to a very nice person, who will help you immediately file the complaint.
Very soon after that the complaint reaches Covered CA, and quickly a very nice and fully cooperative person from Covered CA will most likely resolve your issue in attempt not to go to a judge. Note: if is not resolved by this time - the case will be presented to a judge by the Fair Hearing board. It is not like going to court. Judge may just call you and talk to you on the phone.
Bad web site for online service, full of functionality that you need to guess, unclear rules, that get you into troubles which are very hard to resolve after that. Bureaucracy to the sky. Rules that no one comment or change.
The phone support personnel is usually polite, calm, but their hands are tight, because of rules, and thus they cannot help you no matter how much they try.
Useless service.
I went to the covered california website in December of 2022 hoping to change my health insurance. That's it, just get some factual answers and then change to a different policy but apparently that is not what they do. At no point do they make it clear what they offer they just automatically shuttle you into an application for aid (i don't need that) once that was done they say sorry no help for you and that's it you are done. No matter where you go in the website you always get sent back to asking for aid. If you make an incorrect answer to a question and you go back to fix it the script sends you back to the beginning saving none of you answers. How infuriating is that! I thought this website was about helping me find and select healthcare but i guess I was wrong. Now my only option is to ask questions from people who are selling healthcare, an option which is not likely to get me any impartial answers and might actually get me a lot of misleading answers. I suggest that all web designers ask themselves a few questions before they turn their creations lose on the public. #1 did i make clear what we offer? #2 Will my site save data for the customer until they are actually done and have indicated so? Will my sites responses anger the customer? (like when you won't allow me to answer a question truthfully because you don't like the way I wrote the answer.) Are my links circular? Will they always just take you back to the beginning instead of to what the customer wants. By the time I had spent 10 minutes on this website I was tearing my hair out. Thanks for nothing.
This is the most non-intuitive, confusing enrollment process I've ever been through. The most confusing part is trying to determine if your existing physicians are in the health plan's network before you choose a plan. The provider directories are not up to date. My doctor is not in the Covered CA database, nor the health plan database, but when I call the health plan and the doctor's office, they confirm that they are included in the insurance plan's network. Are you supposed to trust that? When it's not in the online database? Also, if you need to make changes to your information in Covered CA, it is so confusing about what to click; the labels they have for things make no sense to normal people, so you don't know what to choose. The site was developed using jargon and gobbledegook that only makes sense to people in the insurance industry. I keep wishing I would get older faster so I could just get on Medicare and be done with all this complete nonsense.
The service CaCovered offers overall is great. But the website creates real problems for the information that is entered. The CaCovered helpline is good, but they do not have the power to change or revert data that needs fixing. The data entry functions for changing income is really problematic, especially the dates field. Changing plans is also convoluted and site navigation loops around. The plan comparison webpages are good. Physician search is also pretty good. But the rest of this portal needs to re-beta test some new programming.
If you want to have the worst time and spend hours dealing with them, this is the service to use! They always make trouble.
I have been trying to have my insurance through their service, but they canceled it at the beginning of the month, in the middle of the month, and are not even giving me a refund! I made the payment, and they said everything was alright, then without any notice, they canceled my insurance. They are not trustworthy and are awful.
They do not care about people and do not even know what they are doing. Each agent is saying the other agent did something wrong, and even the supervisors cannot figure out the case. The agent is saying one thing, the Covered California supervisor says a different thing! Total mess! Try not to deal with them and not to apply for an insurance through them!
Answer: Hi Eric, success stories using CoveredCA can be viewed here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCFmr5cEGdHCcNY6jYN_649lrqlxVApfQ
Covered California is California's official health insurance marketplace where individuals, families & small businesses can find low cost health insurance.