Gov. Peter Shumlin’s health care reform team is moving forward with the development of in-person assistance programs to help individuals, families and small businesses better access the Vermont Health Benefit Exchange.
The exchange will become the state’s chief health insurance market come Jan. 1, 2014.
Lindsey Tucker, deputy commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, said this week that the state wants to have a support net in place by October 2013 to help guide customers through the digital marketplace.
The administration plans to run two programs: a long-term, state-funded “navigator program,” as officials have called it, and a federally funded program to help the roughly 80,000 Vermonters who will use the exchange when it first opens. State officials learned about these federal funds this summer, said Tucker, and the administration plans to apply for federal funding through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Earlier this week, Tucker’s department sent insurance brokers and organizations — like the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and the Vermont Campaign for Health Care Security Education Fund — an invitation to take a survey.
The aim of the survey is to inform the administration as it develops these in-person assistance programs. Therefore, it asked groups and individuals that might provide guidance on the exchange for their opinions.
“We’re looking for what services organizations are currently offering and which geographic areas they are currently serving and what they might be interested in doing with the exchange in 2013 or 2014,” said Tucker.
The survey closes on Monday and after that, the administration will begin preparing an application for federal funding. In early 2013, Tucker said, they plan to send out a request for proposals to groups and organizations that would run these programs.
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