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Texas to Take Medicaid Smart Card Project Statewide

"We still mail paper cards to almost 2 million Texans on Medicaid each month. The postage alone costs us $750,000 a month."

Based on a thumbs-up from health-care consumers and providers after an extensive pilot, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) plans to go statewide with a new smart card system that creates a more convenient and secure way for people to verify their Medicaid coverage.

Much of the new card's appeal lies in its ability to automate a patient check-in process that now requires provider staff to manually copy information from the paper form. It also will give people with Medicaid an I.D. that is less easily lost or damaged and less likely to be stolen because it requires the client's finger image to use. Other potential benefits include greater security for consumers' health information and protection against provider fraud.

"We still mail paper cards to almost 2 million Texans on Medicaid each month," said Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins. "The postage alone costs us $750,000 a month, and consumers must go to a state office to get a replacement if their card gets lost or damaged. Our pilot has shown that we can use smart-card technology to reduce our costs, protect client information and make it much easier for people to prove they have Medicaid coverage."

The statewide expansion is set to begin next year when HHSC issues a request for proposals in May to select a contractor for the project. If all goes according to plan, the system will be in place by the second half of 2009, and Texas will become the first state to incorporate a smart card-based identity and eligibility verification system into its Medicaid program.

The state evaluated the card's potential benefits in four pilot projects in six Texas counties between 2004 and 2006. With voluntary participation from health-care providers and Medicaid patients, HHSC looked at different technologies and approaches to develop the most appropriate system for Texas.

The new Medicaid card will look like a credit card and be encoded with eligibility and identity information required by doctors and other health-care providers. When a person with Medicaid arrives at the doctor's office, he places his card into a card reader and his finger into a finger image reader. The system compares the images and verifies the person's identity and the type of Medicaid coverage he has. The entire check-in process is completed in seconds.