May 12, 2011: SHARE Deputy Director Elizabeth Lukanen spoke to Managed Healthcare Executive (MHE) recently about the challenges issues states are facing as they plan for the health insurance exchanges required under the Affordable Care Act.
In a May 1, 2011, MHE article, “Public programs lent IT experience to upcoming state exchanges,” Ms. Lukanen points to the challenge of integrating public enrollment systems with a system that will serve as a portal not only to public health programs but also to private insurance and premium subsidies. She offers Wisconsin’s exchange prototype as one example of how to approach this integration—by building a web-based interface over the legacy information and data systems. The source code for Wisconsin is available for free and is already being used by several other states.
Work like that being done in Wisconsin shows that technological progress is being made at the state level and that a certain level of solution-sharing between states is feasible. However, says Ms. Lukanen, linkages between and across state and federal data systems go beyond technological challenges and raise both data privacy and statutory issues that will need to be addressed.
In October of 2010, SHARE hosted a webinar on Wisconsin’s eligibility and enrollment system. The webinar recording and supporting materials can be accessed here. Additionally, information about the effectiveness of Wisconsin’s eligibility and enrollment system in reaching eligible applicants can be found in the February 2011 SHARE brief, “The Target Efficiency of Online Medicaid/CHIP Enrollment: An Evaluation of Wisconsin’s ACCESS Internet Portal.”