Posted on 02/15/2023 12:45:56 PM PST by Morgana
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources contracted with a company in 2017 to develop a system, known as WV PATH, to help the agency better manage programs including Medicaid, food assistance and its child welfare system.
With less than four years left on the contract, the project still isn’t complete. Senate Finance Committee Chair Eric Tarr, who has questioned DHHR about the missing database, said the project has cost $173 million as of July 2022 based on information from DHHR.
“The first risk is harm to kids,” Tarr, R-Putnam, said. “The larger risk is that the feds have been looking really closely at West Virginia because of those failures in the (child protective services) system.”
Jessica Holstein, DHHR spokesperson, said in an email that the vendor had completed milestones in the contract that equal $73 million. She explained that the Covid-19 pandemic “halted the project momentum.”
In January, the agency rolled out the part of PATH that would manage child welfare cases.
“You’ve got a failed system that you’re getting four years of use out of that’s not functional,” Tarr said.
Recently, lawmakers revealed through a bill debate that a second DHHR database isn’t working – the All-Payer Claims Database. It was supposed to help West Virginians save money by comparing health care costs.
The database was never completed, according to Holstein, despite 2011 legislation that called for it.
It has cost the health department more than $440,000, she said in an email.
The lack of transparency around DHHR’s nearly $8 billion budget — the largest of state agencies — and its care for some of the state’s most vulnerable residents is a leading reason legislators want to restructure the agency and further scrutinize its budget.
(Excerpt) Read more at bdtonline.com ...
No one else in DHHR works. Why should the database technology?
Well, that’s one slush fund spread to politicians and their relatives or companies.
That’s nothing compared to the $300+ million that Oregon spent on the ObamaCare State website that never worked. Or the DMV system boondoggle. Those numbers are amateurish.
How in the heck do I get one of these government contracts? My stuff WORKS but just as easily I can do nothing to match their current results!
Give me the same amount of money and I’ll automate every state.
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