Offering assistance with Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) State Self-Assessments (SS-A) is a crucial netlogx service that aligns business and information technology components of a program that manages Medicaid services. It also ultimately improves the delivery of services to Medicaid beneficiaries as States increase their maturity levels
States are granted funds requested through the Advanced Planning Document (APD) process from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) based on the changes in maturity levels reported for their institutions’ processes. For example, if processes are performed manually, they would be considered Level 1 and requested changes should show them moving on to a greater maturity level.
Through the MITA SS-A, a state provides maturity levels to CMS to show that the funds requested indeed improved the maturity levels of processes. When a state is assessed, scores are documented for where they stand to date and where they would like to be. Requests for funds must show that the states are improving their maturity levels.
netlogx has developed an internal tool to create and streamline MITA SS-A deliverables. Prior to the development of our MITA tool, deliverables were produced by hand and typed into formatted pages for delivery and tracking of maturity levels. See how our tool benefits our clients.
The Structure
The tool handles responses for the Business Architecture, Technical Architecture, and Information Architecture questions associated with the MITA Assessment. For each of the series of questions, Yes/No answers must be accompanied by a justification and a link to supporting documents stored within the integrated document library.
Since these questions and types of answers are static from one client to another, netlogx created a centralized database to hold all the MITA questions for each of the business categories, as well as the answers that equate to maturity levels. The standard questions provided by CMS contain multiple required answers at each level, so netlogx reformatted individual requirements at each maturity level to allow for partial level completion to better record the state’s actual maturity. Each question also provides for the easy entry and printing of:
- Current As-Is maturity levels as calculated by As-Is answered questions
- Justification for the current As-Is process
- Supporting documentation
- Current level of maturity as calculated by To-Be answered questions
- Color-coded answers based on the assessment
- Justification for the To-Be processes
- Supporting documentation of the To-Be processes
- Current To-Be level of maturity
Benefits of the Tool
The benefits of our tool for our MITA clients are substantially improved speed and standardization. The manual creation of the reporting was labor- and time-intensive. Prior to utilizing the MITA tool, if one data point needed to be altered, the entire document would need to be updated for pagination and format. Manual creation also created a lot of inconsistencies in format, spelling, colors, etc.
Now, the tool also incorporates a list-based architecture that reduces the need to repetitively enter information. Once information is added to the lists, it’s available for selection, eliminating the possibility of multiple renditions of the same data.
The tool also serves the purpose of housing a state’s data from year to year, allowing for easy access to historical scores. The tool allows the rollover of prior years into a new yearly assessment carrying forward required data. With the tool’s integrated source document repository, an audit of the MITA SS-A offers the documents that were available at the time of the audit. This allows documents to be updated in their natural form but keeps a copy of the documents as they were during the assessment.
Using all this information that the tool provides, netlogx can also offer an annual update of reports and assist in developing the MITA roadmap necessary to advanced planning document (APD) funding.
Other Potential Use Cases
While this tool has been used for two different state clients, we can see other applications as well. We would eventually like to use this as a client-facing tool, with the ability to update scores in a real-time setting. Entering data directly into the tool would be far more efficient than collecting data in meetings by hand and then transferring it into the tool after the fact.
The tool’s ability to house data from year to year and output consistent reports could be used for other projects that require assessment score data. More specifically, there is a Behavioral Health version of this MITA framework that utilizes the same types of questions and answers that the tool already uses. The data could potentially be imported and handled in the same way as the current MITA assessment.
There are also some reports that use MITA data that could be generated in the same manner as the current MITA assessment documents, such as reports for the Medicaid Enterprise Certification Toolkit (MECT) certification of Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS).
netlogx is committed to improving our own internal processes as much as our clients’. As netlogx takes on more MITA projects, the use of our tool will continue to improve so we can serve our clients in a smart and efficient way. Let us help you break down MITA SS-A. It’s time to work smarter, not just harder.