At any point in your life, you may have found yourself wishing you had a different health insurance plan. But you can’t just change your health insurance plan whenever you want to, there are very specific windows of time during which you can make changes.
First we’ll talk about employer based health insurance.If you have health coverage through an employer, your employer will host what is called ‘open enrollment’ once per year, typically 1-2 months prior to the health insurance plan resetting for the new plan year. During open enrollment, you can choose to make changes to your health insurance enrollment, and these changes will go into effect when the new plan year begins. During this timeframe, you can:
- Enroll in the health plan for the first time if you previously had declined coverage
- Change plans if your employer offers multiple plan options
- Add or remove a spouse or dependent children from your plan
- or decline coverage moving forward
Typically, you are limited to making these changes only during open enrollment, unless you experience what’s called a Qualifying Life Event. If you experience a qualifying life event, you will have a certain number of days in which you can make changes to your health plan enrollments. Qualifying life events include:
- Losing other health insurance coverage
- Experiencing a change in your household makeup, such as getting married or having a baby
Next we’ll talk about health insurance through the WA State Marketplace, called Washington Healthplanfinder. If you have coverage through the marketplace, open enrollment takes place from November 1 – January 15 each year. During this time, anybody can enroll in a health plan through the marketplace, or make changes to their existing health plan selections. Selections made during open enrollment are effective January 1. Just like employer plans, you are typically limited to making changes during open enrollment, unless you qualify for a special enrollment period based on experiencing a qualifying life event. You have 60 days from experiencing a qualifying life event to make changes.
And one last note, you can enroll in Apple health (Medicaid) at any time if you meet the income requirements.
