ACA New insurance effective date February instead of January

So, first off I am going to be calling and probably spending hours on the phone tomorrow, that I don’t have, to sort this nonsense out. But I am going to ask here with hope someone has dealt with this before, and maybe I can come up with a plan of attack to hopefully spend less time on the phone.

Very long story short I need to have major surgery, ideally in early January so I have time to recover before I start a new job. I was hoping to have the surgery by now but my current insurance co. believes I should drive 7+ hours round trip for surgery and appointments because the facility in my city is out of network (surgeon is in network). Needless to say I wanted to switch insurers.

Usually I sign up for my new plan early but didn’t this year because I was waiting on the approvals process for the out of network benefits. Regardless I was going to enroll on the night of the 14th. 14th rolls around and I get the denial. After work on the 14th I enroll with the new insurer and immediately pay my premium via credit card. Oddly no confirmation of the premium payment but I did receive confirmation of the enrollment. The next day I received a premium bill in the mail for January for the old insurer. I didn’t think anything of it.

Went to log into the new insurer website and create an account only to see that the effective date is 2-1-23….wtf? I panicked because I cannot be without coverage for any length time with my health issues, double checked the dates, and assured myself I had enrolled in time. After looking through the healthcare.gov website I noticed it said I was enrolled in the old plan through January, with termination on the 31st. It is my understanding auto enroll is only supposed to take place if you get past the 15th date without enrolling. I see an option to terminated the old coverage but this is the second time I have switched insurers and the first time all I did was enroll in the new one by the deadline. I didn’t have to manually terminate coverage before the deadline.

I am hoping it is as simple as calling the marketplace folks and explaining the issue and them removing the old coverage so my new insurance can be effective Jan 1 but I’ve got a feeling its not going to be that simple. I also wonder if terminating the old plan through the option on the marketplace would work but don’t want to risk that without talking to someone first.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I swear if this BS delays my surgery and messes with my new job, somebody is going to get sued (am a lawyer).