Federal Agency to Award $241 Million for Insurance Exchange Technology

The Department of Health and Human Services announced it will award several states a total of about $241 million to design and implement the information technology infrastructure needed to operate health insurance exchanges.

On Feb. 16, the agency announced that Kansas, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wisconsin and a consortium of New England states will receive the cooperative agreements from HHS to become so-called “Early Innovator” states that have committed to making sure the technology they develop is both reusable and transferable.

“Using the grants, they will develop the building blocks for exchange IT systems, providing models for how exchange IT systems can be created,” HHS said in a news release about the contracts. “This will help states to establish their exchanges quickly and efficiently using the models and building blocks created by the Early Innovator states.”

According to the department, the seven grantees offer diversity because they represent different regions of the country, as well as different exchange governance structures and information systems. This diversity, the agency says, will help ensure that a wide range of IT models are developed.  

Filed by Jessica Zigmond of Modern Healthcare, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

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