A Health and Human Services Department panel will debut next month to advise the National Health IT Coordinator David Blumenthal, MD, on the best way to determine the eligibility of applicants for a range of state and federal programs, including insurance plans set up under the new health reform law.

The panel, made up of Health IT Policy and Standards committee regulars and some outside experts, has been asked to identify standards for exchanging eligibility and enrollment data electronically among a hodge-podge of federal and state health and social service programs.

The standards will enable people already receiving benefits from one program to find out quickly whether they are eligible for benefits from other programs, including health insurance.

"The question is how to make that triage and enrollment process easy to happen," Blumenthal said at a May 19 Health IT Policy Committee meeting. "In the electronic age, this is a fundamental part of the process for getting our population insured."

Aneesh Chopra, the White House chief technology officer, and Sam Karp, vice president of programs for the California HealthCare Foundation, will lead the work group. The new panel will recommend enrollment standards to the policy and standards committees by September, said Jodi Daniel, ONC director of the Office of Policy and Planning.

The standards will be designed to simplify enrollment in federal, state health and human services programs by various means, including electronic matching across state and federal databases. Blumenthal talked about the direction of the project at a meeting last month.

"Think about the people who don't have insurance (and) where they have contact now with federal or state government or other public authorities that could channel them into an insurance arrangement," he said.

"It's places like [Women Infant and Children] programs, Head Start program, schools, the motor vehicle department, or a whole range of social service organizations that could potentially be where they go for services," he said.

They could be directed toward a program for which they are eligible, including Medicaid, a children's health insurance program, or a state health insurance exchange where they would become eligible for a federal subsidy to purchase insurance in the private market.

"We're simply giving them - say the mother who shows up for WIC or food stamps - pathway to be able to enroll her child in the child health insurance program," he said.