In establishing its health insurance exchange for individual consumers, an Arkansas board will seek to copy computer code from another state's enrollment system rather than building its own code from scratch, the board decided Wednesday.
At a meeting in Little Rock, the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace board also unanimously approved a name -- My Arkansas Insurance -- and a logo for the exchanges it is creating for individuals and small businesses.
The logo features a pinwheel pattern, representing a colorful umbrella, inside an outline of the state's borders.
Created by the Arkansas Legislature in 2013, the board plans to set up the exchanges with money from a $99.9 million federal grant.
Enrollment in the small-business exchange, which is being built by Reston, Va.-based hCentive, is likely to start Nov. 1 for coverage that would begin in December.
The exchange for individual consumers is likely to begin accepting sign-ups in October 2016 for coverage that would start in 2017.
The board had initially planned to solicit bids in May for a contract to build the technology for the individual market insurance exchange.
Under that plan, the state insurance marketplace would have linked to a state Department of Human Services computer system to determine applicants' eligibility for federal tax-credit subsidies.
But Human Services Department officials have said the department's system, which has been under construction since April 2013, has flaws that have caused delays in processing Medicaid applications and conducting annual eligibility checks of those already enrolled.
The state Department of Information Systems has hired Gartner Inc. of Stamford, Conn., to assess the eligibility system, including whether the state should continue building it using IBM's Curam software, which has been blamed for some of the flaws in Arkansas' system as well as in systems in other states.
If Arkansas uses computer code from another state, that code could include software for verifying eligibility for tax credits, Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace Director Cheryl Smith Gardner has said.
Compared with starting from scratch, using another state's technology also would be quicker and cheaper, in part because, among the expenses, the code would be supplied to Arkansas at no cost, she said.
For instance, Maryland last year spent about $50 million to replace its glitch-plagued software with software code from Connecticut, Gardner said.
By contrast, most states that built their own exchanges paid $55 million to $130 million, she said.
Because of Maryland's success, as well as the successful transfer of eligibility system technology from Kentucky to Oregon, Gardner said, an official with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told her that the agency would be "very unlikely to approve costs for anything that wasn't a transfer solution."
To help the board decide which state to copy, the board's consultant, Boston-based Public Consulting Group, plans to compile information about the computer systems used by the seven state-based exchanges that Arkansas marketplace officials have labeled as having "proven functionality." Those states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, New York, Rhode Island and Washington.
The marketplace also plans to solicit information from companies on the potential costs of copying and customizing the software code.
The board's vote on the name and the logo followed the recommendation of its outreach and marketing committee.
Gary Heathcott, senior client strategist for the Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods advertising firm in Little Rock, told the committee last month that the firm came up with the name and the logo after testing more than 225 combinations of names, slogans and logos with potential consumers.
Also on Wednesday, the board recognized the service of former state Sen. Steve Faris of Malvern, who said he resigned from the board about two weeks ago.
Faris, who was appointed to an eight-year term on the marketplace board by then-Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux in 2013, cited his appointment by Gov. Asa Hutchinson in April to the board of visitors for the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts.
He said he didn't have enough time to serve on both boards. While he enjoyed his time on the marketplace board, he said, he wanted to give someone else a chance to serve on it.
"There's very few things that I've been involved in in my life that I think have touched people as much as this," he said.
The current president pro tempore, Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, will name Faris' replacement.
Also, marketplace spokesman Heather Haywood said Wednesday that the agency will move this month into larger offices at Pyramid Place at 221 W. Second St. in Little Rock.
Since February 2014, the Arkansas marketplace has rented office space in the Prospect Building at 1501 N. University Ave.
The marketplace had earlier planned to move to the Riverdale Plaza Building at 1 Allied Drive but was notified last month that a tenant, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, had claimed the space.
Established under the 2010 federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, health insurance exchanges allow consumers to shop for coverage and apply for subsidies to help pay for it.
The tax-credit subsidies are available to many people with household incomes of less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level: $46,680 for an individual, for instance, or $95,400 for a family of four.
Under the so-called private option, Arkansas also uses federal Medicaid funds to buy coverage on the exchange for Arkansans with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level: $16,242 for an individual or $33,465 for a family of four.
Arkansas is among more than 30 states with federally operated health insurance exchanges.
Proponents of establishing state-based exchanges say that they could be tailored to suit Arkansas' needs. That includes potentially providing an enrollment portal for the program that will replace the private option after the federal waiver authorizing the program expires at the end of 2016.
A Section on 07/09/2015