WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Insurance companies in three states - Florida, Texas and Ohio - will help the government figure out how to use "direct enrollment" to boost enrollment in health plans as part of the Obamacare, the Obama administration announced on Friday.

The administration will use the results of the pilot project to make further adjustments to its glitch-prone website so the "direct enrollment" option is more widely available across the country, a senior administration official said.

"We do believe that it's substantial. We're looking at hundreds of thousands of people who we believe may well opt to do this," the official told Reuters.

(This story has been corrected to clarify that pilot project will not expand direct enrollment in three states)

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Doina Chiacu)