Vt. Health Care Exchange Work Underway

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The state has received a new $104 million federal grant to help put a consumer based health care exchange in place over the next 12 months. Most of the money will be used to upgrade the state’s information technology network and to build a comprehensive public outreach education program.

The federal Affordable Care Act calls on all states to have a consumer health care exchange in place by the end of 2013.  If a state refuses to set up an exchange, the federal government will step in and do this work.

Over the course of the last year, the state of Vermont has been a national leader in developing its exchange and the state has just received a $104 million dollar federal grant that will provide the resources to complete the project.

Starting in 2014, the exchange will be the place where all individuals and small businesses will go to purchase their insurance coverage.

Robin Lunge is the Director of Health Care Reform for the Shumlin Administration. She says a lot of the new grant will be used to deal with several information technology challenges.

The first is designing programs that are specific to Vermont’s health care goals.

"When most people think IT they think hardware and software programs but involved in this information technology purchase is also the design of the IT system," said Lunge. "So making sure that that even if you’re buying software out of the box, that it’s custom tailored to Vermont law and Vermont priorities and that takes a lot of people hours to do."

Lunge says the second challenge is retraining all of the staff involved in this project.

"So if I’m a current state worker I’m operating the old IT system that’s 35 years old it’s going to be a lot different when there’s a new system so we need to retrain staff to use it," she said.

Lunge says the grant money will also be used to create a variety of programs to help consumers navigate the exchange.

"I think the most often talked about part of the exchange is the website and having web based tools for people to use," said Lunge. "In addition to that, there would need to be call centers to assist people who either don’t have Internet access or who would prefer to have someone on the phone with them. In addition there’s funding for in person assistance for people as well."

Lunge says she’s confident that the state’s exchange, which will be known as Vermont Health Connect, will be up and operating by October first of 2013.

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