Minnesota has received five grant awards to build its Affordable Insurance Exchange. This includes a Planning Grant and four Level One Establishment Grants.
Summaries of Minnesota’s applications for each grant are provided below:
Administrator: Minnesota Department of Commerce
Award Amount: $4,168,071; $26,148,929; $42,525,892; $39,326,115
Award Date: August 12, 2011; February 22, 2012; September 27, 2012; January 17, 2013
Application Due Date: June 30, 2011; December 30, 2011; August 15, 2012; November 15, 2012
Level of Funding: Level One
Summary: Minnesota will use its resources under the Affordable Care Act to build on the Limited-Competition Exchange Planning grant it received in February 2011. Minnesota will focus on developing its Exchange information technology infrastructure. Minnesota also will establish an initial governance structure within the Minnesota Department of Commerce with full-time staff dedicated to the development of Minnesota’s Exchange. The state will also create and maintain an Advisory Task Force to provide guidance on the establishment of an Exchange. The state is requesting funding to develop and execute work plans, timelines, and budget and cost-allocation estimates through 2014. Minnesota will also designate a Chief Financial Officer to create and execute detailed work plans related to financial management, program integrity, and Exchange financing mechanisms.
Minnesota has received a second Level One Establishment Grant to support the design and development of its state Exchange. Minnesota has made substantial progress in the four months since receiving its first Level One Establishment Grant in August 2011. Minnesota will build on the work completed under the previous Planning and Level One grants, including designing and developing the Exchange IT system; consulting stakeholders and providing guidance from the Exchange Advisory Task Force; reviewing and analyzing business operations, program integration and financial management.
Minnesota is receiving its third Level One award to support 1) new contracts to assist in the development of brokers/navigators and consumer services programs for the Exchange, 2) contracts related to consumer testing of cost and quality measures, a quality rating system development and the development of an evaluation framework , 3) continued work related financial management and consulting for financial system development, third party assessment internal controls and consultation contracts for program integrity, evaluation and reporting, and 5) the development of annual maintenance costs, integration of professional services, Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V), IT security assessment and hardware and software requirements.
Minnesota will use its fourth Level One Establishment Grant to support the technical infrastructure of the state’s IT solution, and for maintenance costs for hardware and software and project management, program development, system and network administration, security and database administration, identity management and web and storage administration.
Minnesota will continue stakeholder consultation efforts and engage in system user testing, eligibility assistance and outreach, appeals, consumer assistance training on cost/quality metrics and consumer information, customer service operations, graphic design, and outreach campaigns. Funding will also support financial management and consulting for financial system development and premium billing and collections.
Awarded September 30, 2010
Administrator: Minnesota Department of Commerce
Amount Awarded: $1,000,000