Why the health insurance exchange program is slower than planned

October 23, 2013

Whenever a business is switching strategies, it is important that all departments have taken the necessary steps during every part of the transition to ensure that the switch goes as smoothly as possible. If at any moment, one department or group of workers goes off course, it can delay everyone's operations.

This type of situation happens more often than we would like, especially when it comes to records management. Crew members who are not on board to go electronic may choose to abandon their efforts and return to their filing cabinets without telling chief information officers or senior staff.

During a time when this information can be used to explain a company's strengths and weakness, any fragments in the report can hinder Big Data's potential.

Big Data has transformed many markets to be more efficient, but it is also capable of anding-the-buzz-over-big-data/” target=”_blank”>causing harm to an organization's workflow. This is the issue that the Department of Human Services (HHS) faces with its recently opened health insurance exchange program.

"Where was the leadership and oversight helping to assure Obamacare's implementation success?"

Critics of the Affordable Care Act blame HHS for not taking the necessary steps to fully prepare for the influx of Americans applying for health insurance subscriptions, but Michael Schrage wrote in the Harvard Business Review that this is another case of enterprise resource planning issues.

The central program experiences issues, but the entity cannot pinpoint the cause of the issue because there wasn't consistent oversight during the exchange's implementation. 

"Good governance provides oversight, insight, and foresight," Schrage said. "Emerging problems are flagged sooner: project leaders present their testing protocols and outcomes; and updated expectations are clearly communicated throughout the enterprise."

The issue with health insurance exchange is that the website is moving too slow to withstand the influx of Americans trying to get into the database. According to the Government Accounting Office, the parties that were involved with building this website are unsure what software development practices were followed because there were no metric reports on the project's progress.

Data processes have the potential to change the way organizations operate, but if there is no common ground between vendors and clients—operations may get complicated.

Tab Service Company is a Chicago based company with over 53 years of experience as a data processing service provider.  We provide business with outsourcing solutions for document scanning services, data entry services and mailing/lettershop services.  As a SOC2-approved organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.