Open Enrollment: Everything You Need to Know

Every year the Open Enrollment Period comes as an opportunity to get the best possible health insurance for you and your family. Whether you’re a first-timer to the individual market or have been purchasing your own health insurance plans for years, you probably have questions regarding open enrollment.

To help you understand open enrollment and make the most of it, we’ve listed everything you need to know about enrollment dates, eligibility details, and opportunities to change
coverage.

What Is Open Enrollment?
Open Enrollment is a period of time each year when individuals and families can sign up for new health insurance or make changes to their already existing plan. It is important to sign up for insurance during this period and pay your first month’s premium. If you don’t sign up for a health insurance plan during open enrollment, then you may find your options for insurance very limited until next year’s open enrollment period (see below).

What Types of Health Insurance Use Open Enrollment Periods?
Open enrollment periods are used for most types of health insurance, such as:

• Medicare
• Job-based health insurance
• Individual-market health insurance (coverage that people buy for themselves instead of getting from an employer)

Mark Your Calendar for These Dates
Open enrollment periods are used for most types of health insurance, such as:

• Medicare Open Enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7
• Open enrollment for individual-market health insurance plans starts on November 1
  and ends on December 15 (this period may be extended in some states)

When Does New Coverage Start?
In most cases, coverage under a new plan selected during the open enrollment period in late 2020 will go into effect on January 1, 2021.

What If You Miss the Open Enrollment Period?
If you currently have health insurance but miss the open enrollment period, in most cases, your current insurer will automatically keep you on your existing plan or a plan with similar coverage; however, you may find that your premiums increase with the new year.

IIf you don’t currently have health insurance, missing the open enrollment period may put you at risk of not having health insurance for the entire year. However, you may be able to sign up for a health insurance plan outside of the open enrollment period under certain special circumstances.

In general, people whose incomes are low enough to qualify for Medicare or the Children’s Health Insurance Program can enroll in an insurance plan at any time. Native Americans who are members of recognized tribes, bands, or nations are also eligible to enroll year-round. The following qualifying events may also allow enrollment in a new health insurance plan, although in some cases, changing insurance due to one of these events may require an existing enrollment (for example, a marriage could allow one spouse to be added to the other’s existing insurance plan, but not switching to or newly enrolling in a different plan).

• Change in household: A birth, adoption, death, marriage, or divorce in the family.
• Change in residence: Moving to a new region outside of your current insurer’s
  coverage.
• Loss of health coverage: The loss of a job or qualification for Medicare or Medicaid
  services, or aging out of your parents’ plan.
• Other events: Becoming a U.S. citizen, leaving incarceration, joining or leaving the
  AmeriCorps.

As a last resort, short-term, limited-benefit health plans are available in most states. These are generally intended to provide supplementary coverage, which means they are not as comprehensive as a regular health insurance policy. Most of these plans are only available to people who are currently healthy and may require additional eligibility criteria, but they can help keep an illness or accident from becoming catastrophic for people who are waiting for the next open enrollment period to purchase health insurance