CMS selected Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) as the only state to pilot the latest version of the Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) initiative. Known as MITA 3.0, this initiative has new guidelines that require state Medicaid agencies such as the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to conduct a State Self-Assessment (SSA) of the Medicaid program to evaluate how to control costs and measure care outcomes.
To complete the SSA, AHCA must perform an analysis of how Florida currently administers the business aspects of the Medicaid program. AHCA must look at how they enroll service providers, analyze and assess how Medicaid information is processed, and closely analyze and assess the technology that is used to process current Medicaid information.
As part of the SSA, AHCA will develop a roadmap to plan for enhancements, upgrades, or replacements to the Florida Medicaid Management Information System (FMMIS), which is the main information system used for Medicaid enrollment and to process claims.
MITA 3.0 will use score cards to judge the level of complexity involving informational and technical aspects of the Florida program. Levels of complexity can range from a basic level of compliance to levels where complete automation has been implemented or to where systems are ready to exchange data.
CMS selected AHCA to pilot MITA 3.0 as a test to see how well a state can conduct the SSA using the new guidelines. The Agency will provide feedback to the CMS regional office in Atlanta on their experience in completing the SSA and on using the new MITA 3.0 guidelines. The MITA 3.0 project began January 2012 and will conclude by the end of June 2012.
