PROVIDENCE – The first smiling face you see when you go to the HealthSourceRI website is that of Olga Bravo, co-owner of Olga’s Cup + Saucer on Point Street, standing in front of the display case at her café, with messaging superimposed: “See what HealthSourceRI is all about.”

“We’re offering Rhode Islanders a whole new way to get essential health benefits – and offering peace of mind in the process,” the website messaging continues, urging customers to watch a video.

But, in real life, sitting in the café’s tiny office with Bravo and her employee, Evan McKay, recently promoted to manager, trying to navigate the website and create a business account on Tuesday, Oct. 1, the day the health exchange opened for business, there was very little peace of mind to be found.

Bravo followed the online directions, filling in the required blocks. She was then directed to call a number, and use a referral number on her screen to verify her identity.

That’s when the trouble began. For 45 minutes, talking with numerous customer assistance contacts, Bravo tried to work things out, to no avail.

Even more bewildering, the customer assistance person kept asking Bravo to provide her own personal social security number over the phone, as well as her date-of-birth, despite Bravo’s frequent protests that she was opening up a business account, and had already provided the necessary information online.

A customer service manager then jumped into the fray, trying to navigate through the problem, to no avail.

Frustrated, both McKay and Bravo decided that their scheduled health insurance shopping session had to be postponed to another day, given the exigencies of work pressures.

Bravo complimented the professionalism and the even tone of the customer service folks working at the exchange, saying that it had been anyone else, such as Verizon, AT&T or Cox, she might have been screaming at them by now, given the amount of time she had been placed on hold.

Still optimistic
Despite the frustration of the not-too-excellent shopping adventure, McKay said he was still enthusiastic about the opportunity to purchase health insurance so that he could see a doctor for the first time in 10 years, as detailed in the Sept. 30 edition of ConvergenceRI.

Bravo said that she remained optimistic about the potential of the new exchange to lower the costs of health insurance and to bring more young people into the health insurance pool.

It was her desire, she told ConvergenceRI, to cover more of her employees under her health insurance policy through the exchange, if possible. “I hope so, I truly hope so,” she said. Prior to the exchange opening, Bravo explained, “the cost of health insurance was absolutely prohibitive, really, really expensive.”

Part of the reason why the cost was so expensive was because Olga’s was a women-owned business, since in the past health insurance companies were able to charge higher prices for women, something that has been outlawed by the Affordable Care Act.

“Because it was a women-owned business, it was Becky and myself, and we’re both aging, so that just drove the cost way up,” Bravo said. In order to try and keep the costs a little lower, Bravo said that they had to bring in younger people, younger males.

“Being women and being older, we were paying the maximum, and it really pissed us off,” Bravo said. “In the beginning, there were even more women on [the insurance policy], and the [insurer] was like, well, a couple of the women were of child-bearing age.”

Bravo said she told the insurer: “We aren’t planning on having kids, and a bunch of people on [the policy] were not planning on having children.”

The insurer’s response, Bravo said, was that it didn’t matter – they could have children. So, the plan became really, really expensive. “It still is,” she said.

Bravo said that she had quickly plugged in numbers for herself. “What ended up coming back for me was higher than what I’m paying now,” she said. “I thought what I was paying now was high.” For an employee of Evan’s age, 28, she continued, “It’s got to be more affordable.” The more young people like Evan who get health insurance, it will hopefully drive the prices down for people like her, she said. “That’s what I’m looking for.”

Bravo said that she currently uses a broker to help her find the best health insurance policy. “Right now, our health insurance policy is with Tufts [Health Plan], and they are not participating this year, unfortunately,” she said.

As a small business owner, Bravo said that it was important to have the conversation with employees now, and not wait until the enrollment deadline at the end of March, and to try and get as many people covered as possible. “These conversations should be starting now,” she said.

A marathon, not a sprint
Late Friday afternoon, HealthSourceRI sent out a news release with the latest statistics since the exchange opened on Oct. 1: There have been 4,438 calls to the Contact Center, 146 walk-ins, 26,039 unique website visits, with a total of 30,416 websites visits, 2,929 accounts created, and 580 applications for insurance that have been completed and processed.

Spokeswomen Dara Chadwick told Convergence RI that there was no current way to separate out the number of accounts created for businesses and individuals.

It was been a busy week, made a bit more difficult for potential customers because the federal vendor being used for identity verification was experiencing very high volumes, according to Chadwick. “In some cases, the answers provided online are insufficient and a person must call into a customer service representative,” she said, responding to a question about the problem encountered by Bravo. “That part of the process is slower than is typical because of volume.”


When asked to clarify whether or not a small business that currently purchased insurance through Tufts Health Plan could offer health insurance on the exchange to an employer through the business’s health plan, Chadwick explained that this option was not possible until Tufts joined the exchange next year.

“If an employer currently offers Tufts, he or she could, upon renewal, begin coverage in the SHOP Exchange,” Chadwick said, which for Olga’s Cup + Saucer, won’t happen until sometime in 2014. However, if the employer wanted to maintain their Tufts coverage, she continued, employees may want to apply for tax credits as individuals. “They would create their own individual accounts and proceed through the application.”

ConvergenceRI asked Chadwick: If this process is a marathon, and not a sprint, what advice would you give to business owners in terms of how much time they need to invest to get this to work?



“We know that small employers are busy,” Chadwick said. “That’s why we’ve encouraged them to continue to work with their broker, and we’ve made it clear to brokers that we consider them valued partners in guiding small employers through the insurance selection process.”

Chadwick added: “HealthSource RI is designed to make the health insurance selection and purchase process easier for employers. Through the Full Employee Choice option, an employer can decide how much he or she wants to contribute toward employee premiums and select a base plan.”

But that only will work, it seems, if your current insurance provider is offering products on the exchange – or the business wants to shift to a new health insurer.