Fraud among some health insurance agents

The federal health insurance exchange for the Affordable Care Act wants to make it easy for patients to sign up for and switch health insurance plans. However, is it too easy? KFF Health News reports on the increasing fraud among health insurance agents vying for monthly commissions. Apparently, with "only a person's name, date of birth, and state," an agent can switch a patient from one plan to another. Patient consent is assumed, but there seems to be inadequate measures to verify such consent.

Beyond being an inconvenience, such switches can have severe financial consequences, such as patients owing thousands of dollars for higher premiums that they did not sign up for. Patients might also delay medications and surgeries if they find out that their new plans do not cover what they need.

At least some state exchanges have implemented measures to thwart such fraud: "In Colorado, for example, customers create accounts on the state's online market and can choose which brokers have access. Pennsylvania has a similar setup. California sends a one-time password to the consumer, who then gives it to the agent before any changes can be made."

Where there is sufficient financial incentive, it seems that it would only be a matter of time before a naive system built on trust is abused. While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced plans to curb such abuse, it is concerning that they did not anticipate these problems earlier.