Insurers are getting an extra month before they must issue Obamacare insurance rebates to some Americans, according to guidance provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Friday.
The Affordable Care Act requires insurers who spend too much of their revenue on overhead and not enough on health services to pay customers back a portion of their premium, under a portion of the law called the Medical Loss Ratio. The deadline to send out the rebates was originally Sept. 30, but now insurers have until Oct. 30, the agency said.
That’s because of some problems with another part of the healthcare law called risk corridors, where insurers that cover a sicker customer base get extra payments from the federal government to help make up their losses. CMS has delayed letting insurers know how many funds they’ll get, which has in turn delayed insurers’ ability to calculate the rebates for customers.
Because the two parts of the healthcare law — the MLR and the risk corridors — are tied together, the agency is giving insurers more time to carry out their responsibility.
“CMS will not find such an issuer to be out of compliance with the MLR rebate deadline for the 2014 reporting year if the issuer disburses any and all rebates for the 2014 reporting year by October 30, 2015,” the agency wrote.
