The committee wants the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office to hire an independent third party to study the embattled exchange and report back by Dec. 1. The committee also plans to provide “ongoing oversight and review” of the report.
Committee members already had called on the Shumlin administration to report on problems with Vermont Health Connect in weekly hearings every Wednesday. The committee finally made its recommendation in a budget memo to the House Appropriations Committee on Feb. 26.
The memo is the committee’s first formal recommendation on the subject. It directs the consultant to determine if there is an “investment value” in the components of the exchange and whether the state should use some of that underlying technology “for a larger integrated eligibility system.” That system would help Vermonters find out instantly whether they qualify for one of 43 benefit programs such as food stamps, home heating assistance or Medicaid.
Rep. Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg, the chair of House Health Care, announced the recommendation at the panel’s Wednesday hearing with the Shumlin administration’s Vermont Health Connect team.
“I want to acknowledge that there are some further conversations going on about how to perhaps look at, modify, tweak the proposal that we sent to the Appropriations Committee,” Lippert said.
The memo does not say how much the study would cost. Rep. Cynthia Browning, D-Arlington, estimated at a Feb. 19 news conference that a study could cost up to $500,000.
House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said he supports the committee’s recommendation. He said the Joint Fiscal Office is the right party to facilitate the study because “it should be Legislative oversight.”
The news comes about two weeks after Gartner Inc. recommended that an independent entity evaluate whether parts of the exchange can be used for integrated eligibility. Smith said he talked to the consultant, adding, “I feel like we have a third party that’s helping us think this through.”
The backlog was 5,577 on Feb. 1, down from 5,848 on Jan. 27 and 5,700 on Jan. 25, according to Miller. He said the state receives 125 new changes of circumstance every day and is still trying to get the backlog below 3,000.
“It’s continuing to stick a little higher than we would like it to,” he said. “We’re not particularly satisfied with where we are right now.”
Miller also raised concerns about Maximus, the vendor that handles call centers for Vermont Health Connect. “They should be able to handle more of the calls on the first call while the caller is there than they are,” he said.
In February, Maximus answered fewer than half of all phone calls in less than 30 seconds. The company’s agreement with the state requires it to answer at least 75 percent of calls within 24 seconds.
On the plus side, Miller said, a new piece of technology related to Medicaid enrollment has now been deployed. The technology may reduce the amount of manual work that Vermont Health Connect workers need to do to process Medicaid enrollment changes.
For people who are already enrolled through Medicaid, the administration sent out a news release Thursday saying that it sent final notices to Dr. Dynasaur and traditional Medicaid enrollees, warning them to update their income information to avoid being unenrolled.
