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Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Massachusetts Health Connector Payment Portal Is Not Amazon.com

I just went through the sign up process for health insurance through the Massachusetts Health Connector. After enrolling, you have to make your first payment to complete the application process. You make a payment on the Payment Portal, a separate system from the enrollment system.

The Massachusetts Health Connector Payment Portal Is Not Amazon.com

There are issues. Many of them can be solved. Most deal with user interface, but the biggest problem is that the Payment Portal is a separate system from the enrollment system.

Massachusetts Health Connector: Enrollment System - BALANCE DUE
On the Massachusetts Health Connector enrollment system, after you place your order for health insurance and are presented with your BALANCE DUE, you have to go to the Payment Portal and enter everything in by hand.



That's not right.

It's a computer system.

Massachusetts Health Connector: PAYMENT PORTAL

Enrollment ID
If you choose to enter in your Enrollment ID, you have to enter it in without the "RefID_" prefix. Why is that even displayed?



Billing Information
Maybe since it's the first time through, the Payment Portal does not know what my balance due is, so you need to key it in to the Pay Other Amount field.

It's not easy. There is a default 00.00 amount there. I went over to the Massachusetts Health Connector and COPIED my amount due, and then tried to PASTE it into the Pay Other Amount field. It didn't work. I ended up re-keying it in.

Next up was Checking Account Number and Bank Routing Number
When you enter numbers into these fields they are hidden from view. You can't see what you are typing. Over to the right you can see the last four digits of the number you typed, after you type it in, but there's no way to turn off the hidden characters.



Give us the option to display what is typed.

Make Another Payment
If you've chosen both a health plan and a dental plan, at this point you want to make another payment.

First off, why can't I pay both dental and health with one payment? Again, it's a computer system that should know how to apply a total amount to individual payments.

Amazon does it with multiple vendors on the same order.

When you Make Another Payment you are back at square one and have to key EVERYTHING back in again. Enrollment ID, Billing Information, email, etc...

It would be nice it all your info was retained and all you had to do was enter in the new PLAN TYPE and AMOUNT.

Conclusion
It would be nice to complete enrollment on the Massachusetts Health Connector, then be able to click to pay the total balance due, having the system distribute the total between Health and Dental.