HealthSherpa Supports 530,000+ People Enroll in Federal Healthcare Marketplace
San Francisco (PRWEB) September 20, 2016 -- HealthSherpa, a premier technology solution streamlining accessibility to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace, today announced its team has supported more than 530,000 people to enroll in the federal healthcare marketplace since its 2013 launch. The tech firm’s rapid growth and high interest from investors spurred key executive appointments and the addition of new staff.
“Since we introduced HealthSherpa.com, consumers and companies with a large pool of part-time employees, as well as entrepreneurs and small business owners contacted us for help with their health insurance decisions,” said George Kalogeropoulos, founder and CEO of HealthSherpa. “In fact, we’ve effectively supported four percent of all Healthcare.gov enrollees. And as much as 20 percent of all insurance brokers who can sell ACA insurance plans go through HealthSherpa. We’re anticipating exponentially higher call volumes for the 2017 health insurance open enrollment and we’re fully staffed to provide personalized, caring support.”
HealthSherpa’s consumer advocates come from nonprofit and social work backgrounds who get licensed as insurance brokers after they join the company. They are trained to help all populations, including part-time and seasonal employees, independent contractors who file 1099 forms, those in career transition and qualify for COBRA, early retirees under 65 years old or those eligible for retirement. Available seven days a week, HealthSherpa’s consumer advocates can connect them to the federal healthcare marketplace, Medicare, Medicaid or CHIP (Children’s Medicaid). The advocates are incentivized to help consumers regardless of specific health insurance carriers’ products.
To prepare for the 2017 health insurance open enrollment, which begins November 1, 2016, HealthSherpa has doubled the number of consumer advocates on staff. In addition, key executives have been added to the team.
Catherine “Cat” Perez was named a late co-founder and chief product officer in May 2015 for her leadership in product, design, culture and vision of the company. Cat was awarded first place and received the $1 million prize in the 2013 Salesforce Hackathon in recognition of her simplified and user-friendly version of HealthCare.gov for iOS.
Nicholas de Raad was hired as HealthSherpa’s vice president of operations in August 2015. He leads operations and assists with building the business infrastructure to handle the company’s accelerated advancements. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in political economics, Nick began his career in finance at Fisher Asset Management working as an Investment Associate before being promoted to Group Manager in 2014.
Kelly Suzuki joined HealthSherpa in September 2015 as vice president of partner development and is responsible for supporting partner companies in communicating with their part-time employees to access HealthSherpa services. Kelly is an experienced professional sales and marketing executive with expertise in leading business development and client engagement efforts for technology and healthcare firms. Prior to HealthSherpa, Kelly worked at HealthStar Communications, Eveo and Giant Creative Strategy.
Michelle Rider was appointed vice president of marketing in July, 2016 and is responsible for developing marketing and service policies, programs and systems to support the strategic direction of HealthSherpa. With more than 15 years of experience in marketing and management, Michelle has helped develop marketing strategies for health and consumer-related Fortune 500 companies, including Aetna, Abbott Labs, Alberto Culver, Kaiser Permanente, and Coca-Cola.
In addition to consumers accessing HealthSherpa.com, leading brands are partnering with the tech firm as a cost-effective solution to healthcare benefits for part-time, seasonal and temporary employees. By offering HealthSherpa.com, partner companies are attracting and retaining employees, as well as reducing the support burden on their benefits teams.
About Healthsherpa
HealthSherpa is a premier technology solution streamlining accessibility to the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) Federal Healthcare Marketplace. Launched alongside Healthcare.gov in 2013, HealthSherpa has enrolled 530,000+ people across more than 200 carriers. HealthSherpa has partnerships with private brands, nonprofits and more than 12,000 insurance agents/brokers to support consumer enrollment. Backed by leading investors including Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google) and Mitch Kapor (founder and CEO of Lotus, Kapor Center for Social Impact), HealthSherpa's mission is to help every American feel the comfort and security of having health coverage. The company delivers innovation, technology, and customer service by real people to make the Healthcare Marketplace easier to understand, faster to sign up, and simpler to use. Learn more at http://www.HealthSherpa.com.
Kelly Suzuki, HealthSherpa, http://www.HealthSherpa.com, +1 913-221-3140, [email protected]
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