Last week, the Health IT Policy Committee's enrollment work group recommended that states model their electronic health insurance exchanges on existing systems used by federal agencies, Government Health IT reports.
The federal health reform law calls for the creation of the insurance exchanges to help consumers compare and purchase health insurance policies.
Work group members noted that the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration have electronic systems to track data such as personal income, citizenship and legal residence.
The panel suggested that states could use similar systems to verify eligibility for their insurance exchanges. Members also recommended that state-level health programs such as the Children's Health Insurance Program, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program tap into such technology.
Steven Fletcher, Utah's chief information officer, said states also could use federal data sources to verify applicants' eligibility information when appropriate.
The work group also recommended:
- Allowing HHS' Office of Child Support Enforcement to coordinate its electronic data system with the National Directory of New Hires; and
- Building an automated verification Web service around several base services that later could be updated and expanded (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 8/16).