Texas Prepares to Shutter High-Risk Insurance Pool

At year’s end, Texas will shut down its high-risk insurance pool for some of the state’s sickest residents, pushing participants to find private coverage in the federal health insurance marketplace created under the federal Affordable Care Act. And patient advocates say those participants should focus on making the transition sooner rather than later to ensure that they don’t experience a lapse in coverage or lose access to current health care providers and services.

“Pool policyholders who are in the middle of treatment will especially need to be sure the network offered by their replacement health plan includes their treatment team,” Steven Browning, executive director of theTexas Health Insurance Pool, said in an email.