Health Insurance Exchanges (HIXs) launched in every state on October 1, 2013, kicking off an open enrollment period that will last until March 31, 2014. Americans flocked to the marketplaces during the first week, eager to understand their options for health insurance.

Just prior to the launch, Xerox conducted its second annual survey  to gauge Americans’ knowledge of HIXs. This year’s survey focused on how consumers prefer to interact with their states regarding the health insurance marketplaces.

Perhaps most important for states during the open enrollment period: Ensuringcontact centers are robust and flexible enough to handle a significant number of calls from consumers. Contact centers ranked in the top three choices (36 percent) when Americans were asked where they would turn if they needed more information about their health insurance options and navigating their exchanges.

Kentucky’s ACA-related customer care center paints a picture of how much Americans will rely on the phone. From 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1 through 3 p.m. on Oct. 4, the call center supporting kynect, Kentucky’s Health Benefit Exchange, received more than 25,000 calls. Customer care agents answer general inquiries for citizens and help complete applications over the phone. States finding their contact center capacity insufficient to handle the significant influx of volume need to quickly evaluate their options – including identifying a partner with proven experience.

States also need to consider how to communicate with consumers to generate awareness and participation in the health insurance exchanges, and they may want to add traditional, direct mail pieces to the mix. When Americans were asked in the survey how they’d like to receive information about the exchange, traditional mail (57 percent) and email (45 percent) were top choices. TV, print and internet advertising combined accounted for 24 percent of Americans’ preferences.

The graphic below illustrates more results from the survey. The survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Xerox from August 27-29, 2013 among 2,061 adults 18 and older. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Jennifer Wasmer at Jennifer.Wasmer@Xerox.com.

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