State health insurance exchange officials say the overhaul of their online enrollment system is proceeding on track, despite the recent departure of the chief technology officer.
Former technology chief Proteus Duxbury departed recently for another job at a time when Connect for Health Colorado is hurrying to build — so it can test — fixes to its problem-plagued online enrollment system before Nov. 15, officials confirmed Monday.
Duxbury, who began at Connect for Health in February 2014, has taken a position as managing consultant with London-based global PA Consulting Group. He was earning $165,000 a year at the exchange.
Employees working on resolving technology woes now report to Adele Work, who became chief information officer when the exchange shifted Duxbury’s responsibilities to existing staff, spokesman Luke Clarke said. Work had been involved the enrollment issues and her expanded role provides continuity, officials said.
Exchange officials have said they are in a race to resolve or upgrade the 78 “most critical” issues of 118 identified as crippling the system. These problem areas led to thousands of complaints and logjams with applications during open enrollment 2015 that sometimes took months to resolve.
The exchange’s board of directors recently approved $5.1 million through fiscal year 2016 to try to fix the problems.
The most time-consuming issues arose at the interface of the exchange’s system with Medicaid. The shared-eligibility system was supposed to route people to either public insurance or to purchasing private insurance through the exchange.
“Proteus’ departure will not affect the fixes being applied to the shared eligibility system or the deadlines,” Clark said. “The list of priority items was developed before he left. The day-to-day work continues apace.”
Much of the work is in the hands of Deloitte, the vendor for the state’s Medicaid agency.
The exchange has 12 vacancies among its 48 positions. A new interim CEO, Kevin Patterson, will take the helm later this month and begin rebuilding the leadership team.
Date: May 4, 2015