Contractor hired to fix health exchange

The Nevada Board of Examiners on Tuesday approved an emergency contract with Deloitte Consulting that the state hopes will pave the way to fixing the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange.

The exchange was supposed to enroll 118,000 uninsured Nevadans by March 31. As of Tuesday, it has enrolled only 22,000, and thousands of others trying to sign up for the insurance mandated by the federal Affordable Care Act still can’t get through the website or call center.

Kevin Kelly of Deloitte said his team will do its best to analyze the Xerox-developed system and build a “road map” for the state to get the system fixed by the time open enrollment comes again in November. He said the firm will produce that road map in just five weeks. But he said that all hinges on how cooperative Xerox is with his team.

“The key issue is the access to information,” Kelly told the board.

Gov. Brian Sandoval told Xerox representative Greg Vitiello that the state needs “assurance from Xerox that you’re going to cooperate with Deloitte.”

“We can’t go through this again. I’m really banking on Deloitte to get this done.”

That won’t happen if Xerox doesn’t cooperate completely, Sandoval said.

“We are fully prepared to cooperate with Deloitte,” said Vitiello. “We are fully prepared to assist in providing whatever information is necessary.”

Steve Fischer, interim director of the exchange, told the board he needs Deloitte to “dig into the root causes of those issues” — the glitches and other problems blocking people from signing up through the Nevada Health Link website.

The board consisting of the governor, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller voted unanimously to approve the $1.5 million contract.