Serving the High Plains

Quay County enrollment in health insurance strong

link Ruby Lindsey (right), of Tucumcari receives some free gifts from Presbyterian

Health Service financial specialists Cindy Naranjo (left) and Erica Smythe in

January during a New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange recruitment visit to

Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital.

By Steve Hansen

QCS Managing Editor

A month before last Sunday’s deadline to sign up for health insurance under the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange (NMHIX), 124 Quay County residents had enrolled in insurance plans through the program, figures from the federal Health and Human Services Department show.

The number was “encouraging,” Alida Brown, Quay County Health Council coordinator, said, especially since turnout at health insurance enrollment events she coordinated was light.

“We saw maybe 15 people at all three of our events,” she said of a recruitment drive she coordinated in the county with funding from the New Mexico Association of Counties.

Rebecca Wallace, manager of the Quay County Family Health Center in Tucumcari, however, said her experience was very encouraging this year.

At the health center, she said, her staff talked to more people and enrolled them in health insurance through the exchange than last year.

On Jan. 21, three Presbyterian Health Services employees spoke with about 15 people in the lobby of the Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital in Tucumcari, according to Christine Lizotte, a PHS finance manager who toured Presbyterian hospitals, including Trigg.

Statewide , NMHIX had signed up more than 43,000 clients into health care plans under the federal Affordable Care Act by Jan. 15, according to healthcare.gov, the federal health insurance exchange website.

When state enrollment exceeded 40,000, which was reported Jan. 9, Amy Dowd, NMHIX’s chief executive officer, said, “We are very encouraged by the number of New Mexicans that have signed up for health coverage through beWellnm.com”

This year, the consumer experience at the federal HealthCare.gov health insurance enrollment website is simpler, faster, and more intuitive, according to a beWellnm news release. The number of screens people need to click through has been reduced from 76 last year to 16 this year, according to the website.

Also this year, according to the website, lease said, there are five insurance carriers in New Mexico offering more than 30 different plans to consumers.