Making Changes To Your Health Insurance

If you are a Native American and you are enrolled in Medicaid, Medicare, or a Health Insurance Marketplace (Obamacare) health plan, you can make changes to your health insurance at any time. The easiest way to change your plan is to get help from the Benefits Coordinator at your local Indian Health Service (IHS) or Tribal clinic, or from a Patient Navigator or insurance broker, call BeWellNM at 1-833-862-3935 or TTY 1-855-851-2018.

BeWellNM has counselors specifically for Native Americans, click on the link for more information. You can also call 1-855-241-8137 or visit their office at 6403 Menaul Blvd. NE in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

If you applied for your health plan online, log in to your account and follow the instructions to change your plan or to cancel your existing plan and apply for a new one.

Be aware: if you change your health insurance plan or enroll in a new one after the 15th of the month, you may experience a gap in coverage until your new plan starts. 

Qualifying Life Events

Native women in desert with grandkids
 
If you are enrolled in a private health insurance plan through your employer, you will usually have to wait to make changes until the Open Enrollment period, which usually occurs in October, November or December.
 

This is unless you have had a qualifying life event:

  • Loss of previous health insurance, for example, leaving a previous job or losing eligibility for Medicaid
  • Changes in your household, such as a divorce or a death in the family
  • You move or change your residence
  • Changes in your income
  • Changes to your citizenship or Tribal membership.
 

Ask your employer’s human resources representative for information or for a full list of possible qualifying life events, see HealthCare.gov. The list is for non-Indians enrolled in the Health Insurance Marketplace, but it should apply to most employer-sponsored health plans as well.