After Web glitches snarled traffic on the newly opened federal health care exchange website on Tuesday, healthcare.gov, local advocates were unable to give in-person assistance to would-be enrollees.
Sarah Valencia, director of medical clinic operations for Access Community Health Centers in Madison, said her group’s certified application planners were unable to help the around 50 people who showed up for enrollment assistance on Tuesday.
The website experienced glitches throughout the day, but also was overwhelmed by the traffic of, the federal government reported, about 3 million visitors on the first day of the insurance marketplace.
“It sounds like most people were stuck at the security question page when they were trying to create their account,” Valencia said. “I think now there’s just a lot of traffic trying to get to the site … I think there’s a lot of curiosity.”
She said some of those 3 million visitors weren’t customers, but advocates -- people like her whose job is to help customers fill out the necessary forms and get more information. Those advocates also rely on the site to see the application, available plans, and other information customers need to enroll.
Valencia said that customers who are waiting for access to the website can still ensure faster enrollment by gathering the documents they’ll need in advance. The federal government has created a check list, which includes employer tax information, and the policy numbers of any current health plans the household is enrolled in.
