Deltek Pulse: Health care and social services July review

Published: August 06, 2013

Acquisition ReformBig DataContract AwardsGrantsHHSHealth CareHealth ITSocial Services

In July, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released yet another round of funding under the health insurance exchange (HIX) establishment grants. Colorado was awarded a Level 2 grant, while Nevada, New Mexico, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia all received Level 1 grants.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the recent awards:

·         Colorado - $116,245,677

o    Funds will be used to support outreach/education activities. They will also be used to assist in the development of Colorado’s consumer service center.

·         Nevada - $9,020,798

o    Funds will be used to support information technology security requirements, in addition to development of a virtual assistant to allow the state’s HIX to provide one-on-one consumer support and training.

·         New Mexico - $18,600,000

o    Funds will be used to support comprehensive outreach and marketing activities, training efforts, and standards for establishing the state’s Navigator program.

·         Vermont - $42,687,000

o    Funds will be used to support the design, development and implementation of the marketplace portion of fully integrating Medicaid and CHIP into the state’s newly integrated eligibility environment.

·         Virginia - $1,247,402

o    Funds will be used to perform analyses and reviews necessary to support certification, decertification and recertification of qualified health plans and stand-alone dental plans.

·         West Virginia - $10,165,243

o    Funds will be used to support the development of the state’s in-person assistance personnel and plan management activities.

States operating their own exchanges only have two months to get them up and running for consumers to enroll in plans that will begin in January 2014. HHS has awarded more than $4 billion so far in federal funding to support Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements. This funding, which is critical to states’ development of HIX systems, will continue through 2014.

On the procurement side of the spectrum, July brought a lot of activity across health and social services departments. Here are a few contracts awarded last month:

Missouri - The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services awarded its “Spirit System Software Enhancements” project to Custom Data Processing.

Arkansas - The Arkansas Health Connector Division awarded CAI to provide a guide management solution.

Wisconsin - The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families awarded Deloitte for “Child Support Enforcement Document Generation, System Integration Implementation and Training Services.”

And here’s a few projects coming down the pipeline:

Pennsylvania - The Philadelphia Department of Public Health (DPH) released a request for information (RFI) for health interface engine solution services. The state is seeking information on ways to facilitate the exchange of health-related data between several applications within the city.

Tennessee - The Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration confirmed plans to release a solicitation for pharmacy benefit management (PBM) services in June 2014. The current contract is held by CVS Caremark and expires in June 2015.

Nevada - The Nevada Department of Administration, on behalf of the Public Employees’ Benefits Program (PEBP), released an RFI for corporate medical exchange services. The state is seeking information on the scope of the market for the exchange to provide health insurance and related benefits to more than 31,000 people.

South Carolina - The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services anticipates releasing a draft RFP and RFI for Medicaid management information system (MMIS) provider management services.

Wisconsin - The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families released an RFI for “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Collections Mainframe Transition Services.” The department is seeking information regarding moving similar systems from a mainframe environment to the Web.

Florida - The Florida Department of Health released an RFI for patient portal services. The department is looking to integrate a commercial solution to provide functionality required of a patient portal as a component desired to meet the 2014 electronic health record (EHR) certification criteria.

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