Here's a running list of improvements and updates to the HealthSherpa Agent product. If you ever want to get back here, just click the little question mark icon in the top header of your Agent Dashboard.
September 1, 2022
New: CMS IDM-Okta user authentication
CMS requires all Enhanced Direct Enrollment (EDE) partners, including HealthSherpa, to two-factor authentication for agents and brokers. Agents and brokers will not be able to use their HealthSherpa account (or any other account with an EDE partner) without this authentication.
To ensure your HealthSherpa account is integrated with CMS, click into your Settings, and click the “Integrate My FFM Account” button. If you see a red icon and “Disabled” you have not integrated your account. Click “Integrate My FFM Account”.
This will launch the CMS Okta Identity Management portal in a new window. Log in using your FFM username and password to authenticate and link your HealthSherpa account.
Once the account is integrated, the agent will see a green check mark noting your successful account integration.
So long as your account remains active, you will not have to go through this authentication process again. If you do not log in for 30 days, you will be prompted to go back into your Settings and authenticate again.
June 22, 2022
New: Archive contacts in bulk
From either the ‘Clients’ or ‘Leads’ tab, agents now have the option to select several contacts and archive them.
Simply select the checkmark next to at least one contact’s name and press the ‘Archive’ button as shown below. A popup will appear to confirm that the selected contacts should be archived.
This feature can also be used to unarchive multiple contacts. Learn more about archived Clients and Leads here.
June 15th, 2022
New: Agency DMI exports
To assist Agencies with DMI resolutions, HealthSherpa has launched a new export that reports Agency-level DMI statuses. This new feature should be especially helpful for Agencies who have internal teams dedicated to DMI resolution.
This new Agency Admin report will pull DMIs with a due date from the past two months to anytime in the future. For all DMIs within that timeframe, the export includes the following information
Agent name
Client FFM app id
DMI type
DMI status
DMI Due date
URL Link to Client Details Page
Agency admins can pull this export by clicking on the ‘Export’ button above the table in the ‘Clients’ tab. After the following popup appears, press the 'Export DMIs' button.
Additionally, all Agency Admins can automatically receive this export in a weekly email if they are opted into receiving them from the ‘Settings’ tab.
June 6, 2022
Improvement: Error Details on ‘Oops!’ Page
When agents encounter an error, they will now see details about what occurred on the ‘Oops!’ page. These error explanations will be visible for agents who are certified, ID proofed, licensed, and have EDE enabled.
Whenever possible, the error will include the following:
Code or other identifier for technical follow-up
Easy to understand explanation
Recovery actions and troubleshooting if known
May 31, 2022
Follow-up document reminders for clients
Agents and Agencies now have the option to send an automatic email to active clients about their follow up documents 15, 5, and 1 days before their deadline.
The email signature for these emails will include one of the following:
For independent agents: the contact information in your HealthSherpa Account
For agencies: either the contact information for each individual downline agent or a customizable signature from the Admin account.
Here's an example of the email, which is going to the client of a fictional agent named Jose Gomez. The bulleted list contains any follow-up that's in an "Action needed" or "Insufficient docs" status. Text in [brackets] indicates content specific to that client/application.
These emails can be turned off from the ‘Settings’ tab in all accounts except for downline agents under an Admin who has turned it on at the agency-level.
May 17, 2022
Improvement: Avoid Search & Claim duplicates
In the event that you Search & Claim a client who already appears in your "Clients" tab, you will now be able to update the application and view it instead of creating a duplicate by selecting the "View in Dash" button.
Below is an illustrative example of the new button:
An Agent may need to do a Search & Claim on one of their existing applications if they want to make sure they have the most up to date information (e.g. payment statuses, document statuses, premium amounts) in their HealthSherpa account.
May 3, 2022
View more rows at once from the 'Clients' and 'Leads' tables
At the bottom of the 'Clients' and 'Leads' tables, you can now select to see 10, 20 or 50 rows on one page.
When you select a new row amount, it will scroll you to the top of the page and start on page 1. If you refresh the page, it will default to 10 rows.
March 21, 2022
New Monthly SEP for clients ≤150% FPL
Agents can now enroll or change plans for eligible clients through this new SEP.
Clients are eligible for this SEP if they fit both of these criteria:
Have an estimated annual household income at or below 150% FPL
Are otherwise eligible for APTC*
*As a reminder: Consumers with income below 100% FPL but who do not qualify for Medicaid due to immigration status only may still be eligible for APTC if they meet all other Marketplace eligibility requirements. They would also qualify to use this SEP.
When enrolling an eligible client, there will be one noticeable change in the quoter. If you enter an income in the qualifying range, you will skip the “SEP reasons” step shown below.
All of the questions in the application will remain the same. The application will automatically detect the SEP for clients with qualifying income, so you do not need to mark anything in the Upcoming/Recent Changes section for your client to receive this SEP.
March 4, 2022
Improvements to the Follow-Up Documents Column
In your Clients table, you will now see due dates for your clients’ follow-up documents. If more than one follow-up document is needed for a client, the due date that’s closest will be listed in the table.
You can now also sort the Documents column by due date. Rows in the Documents column will sort based on date and status. If you sort to see clients with the closest due dates first, the statuses will sort in this order:
Action Needed
Insufficient Documentation
Processing
Expired
Completed
Not required
Click here for descriptions of what each of these statuses mean and directions on how to upload follow-up documents.
February 15, 2022
New: Agency Roster Exports
Agency Admins can now export information on their downline agents. We added this feature to help Agencies do the following:
Email their downline agents who have linked HealthSherpa agent accounts
Check whether their downline agents’ settings are accurate
Confirm their downline agents have enabled EDE
Assess enrollment volume at the downline agent-level
To download your Agency Roster export, click the ‘Export’ button from the Agency tab. A modal similar to the example below will appear, and you will click ‘Export agents’ to receive a copy of your roster.
February 3, 2022
Improved workflow for dependents aging off applications
In situations where a newly-independent member* is aging off of an application and needs to create their own, they are now able to complete their application on HealthSherpa without redirecting to HealthCare.gov.
Specifically, the newly-independent member’s application on HealthSherpa will not erroneously sync with their parent’s application from the prior year.
Prior to starting the new application, remember to remove the newly-independent member from the previous application.
This can be done by visiting the Who’s Applying for Coverage page via Report Changes, removing the member, and then resubmitting the application.
*Defined as an individual who was a dependent during the prior Open Enrollment period, but are now independent (for e.g. turning 26 during the Open Enrollment period).
January 25, 2022
Added export report flexibility
When clicking the ‘Export’ button from the Clients or Agency pages, a modal will now appear that lets you choose an export date range. Agencies are also able to include archived clients in the export.
We made this change so you can get an export for a shorter date range instead of all of your clients every time. This lessens the load on our system, and means faster delivery of the information you need!
January 24, 2022
Email notifications for follow-up document changes
With Follow-up Document Notification Emails, you’ll receive an email at 1:00AM EST if there are any follow up document status changes for your clients. The email will include a simple, digestible table like the example below of all the status changes that occurred that day.
The table you receive via email is not a running list — it will only include information on client statuses that have changed within the last 24 hours.
December 27, 2021
Update: Multiple Enrollment Groups (Split Policies)
Agents can now opt out of grouping applicants who've chosen the same plan. This feature was designed to support the needs of Agents in the following scenarios:
When one applicant is AI/AN, and the others aren't — the AI/AN applicant can retain their AI/AN benefit ($0 deductible/OOP).
When one applicant qualifies for CSR, and the others don't — the CSR eligible applicant can keep their extra savings.
When applicants want separate deductibles, etc. — the applicants can avoid having a family deductible.
To opt out of grouping applicants who choose the same plan, remove the checkmark that's highlighted below:
Click here for more information on how Multiple Enrollment Groups work on HealthSherpa.
November 30, 2021
Application change: existing coverage question
To improve clarity, we’ve added a second question to the existing coverage section in the application.
November 23, 2021
American Rescue Plan fields removed from export report
To ensure consistent performance and site stability, our team removed the following fields from the export report: arp_subsidy, arp_subsidy_change, and bronze_to_free_silver.
If you use the export feature, please keep the following in mind:
Large data pulls take longer. To avoid slow reporting for everyone, please pull reports one week at a time instead of a full season report beginning 11/1.
Export requests are processed in the order they are received. It may take a number of hours for your report to land in your inbox.
We thank you for your patience and understanding, and with these adjustments, the HealthSherpa system should run smoothly for the remainder of the Open Enrollment Period.
November 15, 2021
Addition to the Quoter: Medicaid/CHIP denied toggle
In the past, if a member of your client's household was eligible for Medicaid/CHIP, HealthSherpa would take them out fo the quote. Now, you can keep applicants on a quote who were denied Medicaid or CHIP.
October 26, 2021
Bulk Renewal Email Improvements
You can send an email to every clients who hasn't renewed through the "Renewal email" button at the top of your Clients table.
We've made the following improvements to let agents better customize their outreach:
Editable email subject line
Toggle the call to action button on or off
Please note you can only send a Renewal email to the same client 3 times in a week. Read our help article for more information.
October 18, 2021
For Agencies: Full Book access
From a HealthSherpa Agency Admin account, it’s now possible to give selected agents access to an entire agency-wide book.
This feature is similar to the Shared Book feature we launched last month, and it’s meant to add extra flexibility to our system for an agency’s needs.
Please note that an agent cannot be in Shared Book and Full Book at the same time.
September 22, 2021
Big update: Realtime Document Statuses
We’ve made enhancements on our backend, which translates to realtime document statuses on your Client List – no more clicking "Refresh" links! This will make it even easier to make sure your clients don't lose subsidy or coverage.
September 21, 2021
Now available: Cigna off-exchange plans 🙌
We’ve added Cigna plans to our off-exchange shopping and enrollment experience! Off-exchange plans are only accessible through an agent account on HealthSherpa, and Cigna plans are available for clients in AZ, KS, TN, MO, VA and NC.
Off-exchange shopping is a good option for:
Those who make too much to qualify for premium tax credits on-exchange could get Silver plans that are up to 30% cheaper off-exchange!
Those offered both an Individual Coverage HRA and Cafeteria (salary deduction) benefit for the cost of premiums.
If your client is interested in savings through premium tax credits or Medicaid / CHIP, you should check their eligibility on-exchange first.
Look for the quote button in the top right of your agent dashboard and click the dropdown to access the Quote off-ex feature.
September 20, 2021
Client email now optional on the application
For circumstances where the Client does not have an email, we’ve updated the application so Agents can skip inserting one.
Please keep in mind that if you don't list an email for a client:
They'll still get paper mail from the Marketplace
They won't be able to use their Consumer Dashboard which allows them to do their own servicing year-round. Learn more
September 15, 2021
For Agencies: Multiple Admin Accounts
Through HealthSherpa, Agency account owners (AKA Primary Admins), can now give other members of their downline the powers of their Admin account.
This feature is best for Agencies who need to give Admin-level permissions and access to other agents in their downline.
September 8, 2021
For Agencies: Shared Book
The Shared Book feature makes it easy for agents in your agency to access each other's clients and leads.
This can be useful if your agency has a call center model, or has captive agents, or just wants to let agents occasionally help each other's clients.
Once agents are added to the Shared book, they can:
Access the client and leads of every other Shared Book agent
Edit applications without updating the NPN
Make shared notes
August 18, 2021
New option to enter birthdate when quoting
The HealthSherpa quoter now accepts either the client's age or date of birth.
August 16, 2021
Downline Agent Search
From the Agency tab, Agency Admins can now search for a specific agent by name or NPN.
August 9, 2021
Multiple Enrollment Groups (Split Policies)
It’s now possible to enroll applicants from the same application in different plans through Multiple Enrollment Groups!
Enrolling applicants in different plans can be useful if they have varied health, provider and/or prescription needs.
How to access Multiple Enrollment Groups
After filling out the application, you’ll click “Shop Multiple Plans” from either the Eligibility Result (shown below) or Confirm Plans pages.
Then, you’ll be able to select subsets of applicants and shop their plan options.
Read our Multiple Enrollment Groups help article to learn more about how this feature works.
July 27, 2021
Client List sorting
You can now sort even more columns on your Client List and Lead list in ascending or descending order. Sorting by client name was one of the top requested improvements to the Agent Dashboard. Enjoy!
July 01, 2021
ARP Unemployment Subsidies
As part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP), beginning July 1st, clients with at least 1 week of unemployment income in 2021 can gain additional subsidies. You're now able to view and apply the subsidy for eligible clients right through HealthSherpa.
You'll be able to mark "has received or been approved to receive unemployment income" in both the Quoter and on the Application to see these new, up-to-date subsidy results.
To apply the subsidy, just submit the application for new clients, or re-submit the application for existing clients.
For any clients who have listed unemployment income, you'll see a green banner on their Client Profile that shows how much they can save (see below).
Easily review which of your clients have unemployment income by looking at the has_unemployment_income column on your Export Report.
In effect, this additional subsidy makes clients eligible for a benchmark Silver plan that's $0. But it can be applied to the client's existing plan, or any other plan you'd like to change to.
Learn much more about this new subsidy and how to apply it on our blog post here.
June 23, 2021
Small Export Report update
When you do a .CSV export of your Clients List, you'll now see the dollar amount listed for any referral applications you submit in the referral_bonus_amount column.
June 16, 2021
Print improvements
We've improved the print quality on our 3 most printed pages:
Plans List
Plan Details
Compare Plans
Printouts on these pages now have a cleaner, more readable layout, and use less ink!
June 09, 2021
Jump backwards in the application navigation
You can now jump directly back to a previous step in the application navigation, without having to click back through each page. This will save time if you or your client need to add or update something from an earlier part of the app.
June 03, 2021
Referrals program updates
For anyone who has opted into our Referrals Program, you'll now be able to select any carrier you want to Refer. You can clearly view and edit Referred carriers from the updated Carrier Settings page, seen here:
June 1, 2021
HSA (Health Savings Account) filtering in Plan Shopping
You can now filter to only see plans that are eligible for an HSA.
HSAs allow your clients to contribute pre-tax dollars to an account that can be used to pay for medical expenses. Learn more here.
May 30, 2021
New columns added to the Export
We added two fields to the Client List Export Report. Learn more about the Export Report here.
1. EDE sync timestamp (last_ede_sync)
This field shows you how the last time this application has been synced with the Marketplace. This can particularly help when you're working to effectuate apps, you'll be able to see how recent the followup_docs and policy_status and effectuated columns are. To pull more recent follow-up, policy, or effectuation statuses, just hit the refresh buttons from your Clients Table or Client Profiles.
2. More details about an application’s NPN (npn_reason)
In the past, the npn_reason field only showed whether the Agent of Record (AOR) was you, HealthSherpa (in the case of a referral), or ‘Other’. Now, you'll also be able to see whether there is ‘No AOR’, or if the NPN is an ‘Other Party’. 'No AOR' can sometimes occur if the client makes application changes through HealthCare.gov.
May 27, 2021
Prescription search in the quoter
The prescription search feature is now back in plan shopping, and more polished.
Add your clients prescriptions to see their copay rates added to each plan card and Compare views.
Filter on any added prescriptions to see only plans that have copays for that prescription.
April 14, 2021
ARPA workflow improvements
Your ARPA subsidy workflow just got a bit faster! Now, when you click the "Apply the new subsidy" button, you'll see an option to either report updates or not—if you choose "not," you'll jump to the end of the application. This way, if an application doesn't have updates, you won't need to walk through each step.
April 01, 2021
ARPA subsidy tools
We’ve made some changes to the HealthSherpa site to help you apply APRA subsidies for your clients, target your outreach to new clients, and work as efficiently as possible.
1. Six new columns to enable your American Rescue Plan (ARP) outreach
last_submission_date: Allows you to see which clients have updated their eligibility since 4/1. If it’s blank, that means the application has not been resubmitted through HealthSherpa for the ARP subsidy.
FPL_ratio: Exact ratio for the federal poverty level (FPL).
ARP_subsidy: The estimated new subsidy under the ARP.
ARP_subsidy_change: The estimated change from the current subsidy.
bronze_to_free_silver: Indicates whether the client is eligible for a free silver plan because they are within 100—150% FPL.
has_unemployment_income: Identifies applications that included unemployment income as part of the last submission.
2. Updated subsidy calculations in the quoting tool
3. Our ARPA auto subsidy calculator, which will allow you to easily view whether a member is eligible for additional subsides in their client profile, and how much more they can save with ARPA.
4. Guided re-submission flow, which will give you in-product educational prompts to help you re-submit an app for a client.
March 02, 2021
Bonuses tab updates
We've rearranged the left navigation a bit. A new section called "Bonuses" now contains the Referrals, Broker Bonuses, and Associates sections. All three of these sections give you opportunities to make extra income through HealthSherpa.
February 15, 2021
Covid SEP
With the introduction of the special Covid SEP, we've made a couple updates:
You won't need to submit a Qualifying Life Event on the application
Any of your clients who use your marketing link won't need a Qualifying Life Event
Learn more details about this SEP here.