BCBS Terminated Coverage w/o Contact Over Expired CC on AutoPay

[zlibrary]

I'm in Western North Carolina (Asheville) insured (until recently) by BCBS-NC through Healthcare.gov. My wife was insured through the same policy. We own a business and as such are self employed--it isn't a big business, 3 employees including ourselves, and we bought the plan as individuals.

Here is a timeline, to make this easier to understand:

1. 3/27: Invoice received for April period.
   
2. 4/01: Payment made for April period.
   
3. 5/01: Payment made for May period.
4. 5/31: Credit Card expires.
5. 7/05: Invoice generated for May, Invoice generated for June, Invoice generated for July, Insurance terminated, letter mailed notifying of termination.
6. 7/11: I receive email from BCBS telling me I have an invoice to pay, I log in and see that my insurance is terminated, I call BCBS and began this process of attempting to have my insurance reinstated.
7. 7/14: I receive letter dated July 5th notifying me of cancellation.
8. 7/18 (today): I call Marketplace, they tell me escalation was denied, I submit appeal and NC DOI request.

After I found out they terminated I called them, they said they couldn't do anything unless they'd made a mistake. They had my old billing address on file, but they had my new address for my contact preferences (they never mailed anything anyway, and when they did mail something they sent it to my new address--I've lived here three years). They started a three way call with the Marketplace, the Marketplace created a HICS (?) escalation.

Today I called the Marketplace to follow up on the escalation. They told me it was denied because BCBS invoiced me but I didn't pay. They did invoice me, but not until after they cancelled my insurance. They told me I could appeal, said I should try BCBS again to see if they could do anything.

I called BCBS, they said they couldn't do anything because of the decision on the HICS escalation by the Marketplace.

So then I submitted an appeal through the Marketplace and I submitted a complaint/request for assistance through the NC Department of Insurance.

My question is… what do I do now? My wife & I don't have insurance. We have to cancel our doc appointments or pay out of pocket, have to pay out of pocket for prescriptions. We don't have any life-threatening conditions, there's no medical emergency. The only emergency is me freaking out. I don't know if I can get insurance, I don't know if I should wait to keep trying to get it reinstated.

Thank you for reading and thank you for any guidance.

EDIT: Just saw the bot-post about age/income/etc…

Age: 32, wife's age 37

ZIP: 28801

Income: ~$84,000 joint

 

[ngocvncom]

@zlibrary How was your invoice on 3/27 delivered? Physical mail? Email? You logged on an viewed it?

If you signed up for autopay and agreed to access your invoices electronically, it's your responsibility to log on and view those invoices and to make sure they are paid. You should have noticed that no payment came out in May or June and proactively updated your payment info before you received a cancelation notice...

You can't purchase full major medical coverage at this time of year without a qualifying event. You can purchase a short-term medical plan that will exclude any pre-existing conditions and have limits on what it will pay for any new condition that arises. That might be better than not having insurance. You can also purchase some sort of Accident (AD&D) insurance that will pay a lump sum in the event of death or serious injury. And might have a AME (Accidental medical expense) rider that pays out something for less serious medical visits.