The state has announced that it will be cutting off its relationship with CGI as a result of the website’s serious problems.
The Massachusetts insurance exchange, Health Connector, is now cutting off its relationship with CGI, the technology vendor behind the marketplace’s website, in light of the disastrous performance that the site has maintained since it was updated to comply with the requirements of the federal health care reform.
The state has now entered into negotiations regarding the transition process with a new contractor.
According to a special assistant to Governor Deval Patrick, Sara Iselin, who is responsible for overseeing the repairs to the Massachusetts insurance exchange, “The Commonwealth has decided to part ways with CGI, and we are beginning a negotiate with them about what a careful transition looks like”. This statement was made following a meeting which was held with the marketplace’s board.
Since the launch of the Massachusetts insurance marketplace online, it has never worked properly.
The website was launched on October 1, 2013, in order to comply with the health care reform and has, since that time, been riddled with problems, bugs, and glitches that have made it so that individuals have not been able to enroll in order to obtain subsidized coverage plans under the federal Affordable Care Act. The state has been working hard to be able to keep up with the various issues in the form of temporary coverage, extensions to coverage, and manual enrollment that has been highly labor intensive for the state.
According to Iselin, the Health Connector board meeting revealed that the intention is not to simply trash the entire exchange website. At the same time, though, they have no intention of attempting to continue forward with CGI. At the moment, they are now looking into either hiring a new contractor that will recreate some of the central elements of the website, or they may begin to use some of the software that was developed for either another state’s exchange or for the federal exchange website.
Iselin explained that CGI has been notified of the decision that was made and that they have only now begun negotiating what they are hoping will be a careful transition in which they work together for CGI to exit the Massachusetts insurance marketplace website effort.
