Guaranteed Enrollment Plans

If you lose your job or no longer have access to health insurance, you may still have options for continuing your health care coverage. With a guaranteed enrollment plan, you cannot be denied enrollment into a plan because of a prior health condition. Need help deciding if a guaranteed enrollment plan will meet your needs? Answer a few, simple questions to get plan recommendations.

Personal Choice^® PPO

If you no longer have coverage through an employer and want to continue your benefits coverage with a guaranteed enrollment plan, we offer Personal Choice for individuals. Personal Choice is a Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan, which means you can seek care from any provider without a referral.

Covered benefits

Benefits covered under the Personal Choice PPO plan for individuals include:

• primary and specialist care
• preventive care
• hospitalization
• emergency and urgent care
• prescription drugs

Guaranteed enrollment

Personal Choice is a “guaranteed enrollment” plan, so you will not be denied enrollment into this plan because of a prior health condition. However, a preexisting condition exclusion period may apply.

If you switch to a Personal Choice plan from another Blue Cross^® and Blue Shield^® plan without a lapse in coverage (also called a Blue-to-Blue transfer), the preexisting condition exclusion period may be reduced or eliminated.

To learn more about preexisting condition exclusions and what qualifies as a Blue-to-Blue transfer, review the Creditable Coverage FAQ.

Learn more about Personal Choice.

Other options

Other Independence Blue Cross (IBC) plans

Call us at 1-800-ASK-BLUE (1-800-275-2583) for more information about the following options:

• If you are losing your IBC group coverage or your COBRA coverage is about to expire, you may be eligible for coverage through a conversion plan.
• If you are losing group coverage through another carrier, you may be eligible for a HIPAA continued-coverage plan.

COBRA

If you recently lost your job, coverage through COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) may be an option for you. COBRA allows you to temporarily maintain the same health benefits you had with your employer’s plan. It’s available to most employees whose employer coverage has been terminated.

If your employer has 20 or more employees, visit www.dol.gov and search for “COBRA.” If your employer has fewer than 20 employees, visit www.pa.gov and search for “Mini-COBRA.”

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