Obamacare Will Be Put to the Test this New Year

According to Reuters, New Year's Day will bring a fresh test for the healthcare overhaul, as hundreds of thousands of Americans begin to use the program's new medical coverage for the first time. For the nation's healthcare system, the stakes are huge in Wednesday's launch of the program known as Obamacare.

Which begs Reuters to ask the question "will the program work as advertised on January 1st, after a chaotic enrollment period in which problems with the HealthCare.gov website led to a series of deadline extensions?"

After all, many of the newly 1.1 million plus insured under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - about 975,000 on the federally run exchange - signed up just ahead of a December 24th deadline to receive benefits on January 1, giving health insurers a tight framework to create accounts that can be accessed by doctors, reports Reuters.

But, one fear expressed by administration officials and insurance industry executives is that some people who need medical care during the first days of 2014 will head to the doctor, only to find there is no record of their new insurance. That could mean patients would have to pay upfront and submit a bill to their insurance carriers later.

A senior administration official acknowledged to Reuters that "there will be bumps in the road." "We need to plan for them, we need to anticipate and we need to make sure that we are ready to respond," the official said.

But, physicians say they are used to dealing with changes to patients' insurance coverage and it is not unusual for there to be lag times between enrolling in a new insurance policy and the time it becomes official. Some doctors will be willing to delay billing. Others may not be.

"Come the start of the year there will be dueling narratives: the people who have never had insurance before who are actually getting decent care for the first time in their lives, and people who are having issues with the administration's new policies," said Dan Mendelson, chief executive of a Avalere Health, which has been tracking the healthcare overhaul.

And, while Mendelson feels they will cancel one another out, he also expects early 2014 problems to be limited, given the light pace of enrollment across the nation; and the fact that hospitals and other providers are experienced in troubleshooting coverage questions for patients.