A man hoping to purchase dental insurance for himself and his two adult children mistakenly signed up for Pediatric Dental Insurance.
Last November, Scott Jensen logged onto the Obamacare health exchange website and filled a mandatory questionnaire. The questionnaire asked his age and the ages of his children. He answered these same questions multiple times. Upon completing the survey, a message came on his computer screen telling him what insurance plan he had signed up for.
The message said that Jensen and his two sons enrolled in Select Health Dental.
A few months later, his sons Josh and Jeremy visited the dentist. They presented the receptionist with their insurance card, but the receptionist looked at the card and told the brothers that they were not covered.
Convinced that there was a mistake, Josh and Jeremy called their father. Jensen phoned Select Health and was informed that he had purchased Pediatric Health instead of Adult Dental.
Jensen asked Select Health to cancel his policy, but he was instructed by them that he would need to terminate the policy through the health exchange website. He chatted with a representative on the website, who told him "We can't help you resolve this issue," and advised him to go back to Select Health.
Jensen had been paying for a health service he could not use. Hoping to get answers and his problem resolved, he asked KUTV-UT to investigate the matter.
A reporter from KUTV-UT spoke with a representative from the health exchange, who told him that one of the common problems with enrolling in healthcare through the website is that health care plans are often paraphrased, thus why "Pediatric" was omitted from the Jensen's plan description.
She said that the only way Jensen would be able to cancel his plan was to visit the health exchange website.
KUTV-UT contacted the marketplace on Jensen's behalf through their Health and Human Services spokespeople. In an email, they told KUTV-UT that Jensen that he could log on to healthcare.gov and cancel his plan through the website. His plan has finally been cancelled.