Although Monday’s deadline to sign up for health insurance for 2014 using the federal Health Insurance Marketplace has gone, the navigators who help people sign up remain busy.

The Hospital Council of Western Pennsylvania, based in Warrendale, has had a part-time navigator since February and experienced an increase in people looking to sign up since the beginning of March.

Pat Raffaele, vice president for professional services, said there was a bigger rush during the past few days before the deadline.

“I got a lot of e-mails over the weekend,” Raffaele said.

Katie Montgomery, a certified enrollment counselor at the council, said that as long as people started their applications by the end of Monday, they would be granted an extension to finish the application.

Because of this, she was encouraging people to begin an application Monday so she could make an appointment with them to finish it later. She said her schedule this week still is full.

Montgomery said that she has helped about 75 people since starting in February, though she said the final number will increase when she finishes helping people this week.

The people signing up at the council came mainly from Butler, Beaver and northern Allegheny counties.

Raffaele said she thought there were not enough navigators in this part of the state, and she hopes there will be more for the next enrollment cycle.

She said the council intends on doing more planning for the next enrollment cycle, which will begin Nov. 15 and continue until Feb. 15, 2015. She said the council wants to work more closely with rural hospitals since they are in areas that have fewer navigators.

Tom Franz, a navigator with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit who focuses on Butler County, said he will spend a lot of his time until the next enrollment period educating himself and others about the marketplace.

“I will continue to be present in the community,” Franz said.

Like Montgomery, he advised people on Monday to get in the marketplace queue before the end of the day so they could finish the application later.

He noted the health care website went down on Monday and the federal phone lines were busy. He was only able to help one person Monday morning.

He told other people who had appointments with him to call the federal health care line to get in the queue so they would be eligible for an extension and he could help them later.

Franz will be stationed at the Community Health Clinic of Butler County, 103 Bonnie Drive, Summit Township, on the next two Mondays to help people who have begun queuing to finish their application.

Since starting in February, he said he has spoken to about 200 people and directly helped 75 to 100.

The federal Health Insurance Marketplace, which opened Oct. 1, was established by the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.