Where It All Started
The work that taught us everything since.
IdeaCrew’s state-based marketplace work is a cloud-based, end-to-end system that lets states, employers, and individuals shop for and enroll in health insurance and other benefits. It runs today in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Maine, connecting hundreds of thousands of people to coverage.
It is also where IdeaCrew began. When the District needed a marketplace that worked, we built it. The approach we developed here, and the lessons we learned, shape how we take on every problem that has come to us since.
What is a state-based marketplace?
Under the Affordable Care Act, every state needs a marketplace where residents can compare health plans, find out what financial help they qualify for, and enroll. A state can use the federal marketplace, or it can run its own. Running your own means more control, lower long-term costs, and a better experience for residents, but it means building and operating a genuinely complex system.
That system has to do a lot at once: verify identity and income against federal data sources, calculate subsidies and Medicaid eligibility in real time, present plan choices clearly, handle enrollment and payments, and generate the reports state and federal agencies require. It has to work on day one, because people are counting on it for coverage. This is the work IdeaCrew does.
We pioneered the modular approach.
When states and the federal government first built health insurance marketplaces, they relied on all-at-once deployments. These launches ran into the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars, and they failed almost universally. Whether a state recovered depended on how it responded to the failure.
The District chose IdeaCrew to build a replacement marketplace a different way: over time, module by module, while the system stayed live. As a result, Washington, D.C. can claim the first modular exchange in the country, and IdeaCrew is the firm that built it. That approach is now reliable enough to share across states, which is how Massachusetts and Maine came to run on it too.
We build for the people who actually use it.
A marketplace has to serve very different people through the same system: an individual comparing plans at their kitchen table, an employer weighing options for a small staff, a broker managing hundreds of clients. We design for each of them.
Individuals and families
Anonymous browsing tools let people compare plans, check eligibility for Medicaid or subsidies, and search providers and prescription coverage through our integration with Consumers’ CHECKBOOK, all before creating an account. An affordability calculator helps them understand real out-of-pocket costs, not just premiums.
Employers
A quoting tool lets employers explore their health insurance options quickly and simply, and manage benefits for their employees through a straightforward portal.
Employees
Workers can compare their options and enroll in coverage their employer sponsors, with the same clear plan-comparison tools available to individuals.
Brokers
Brokers can manage their books of business, quote and enroll clients, and access the tools they need to support customers through open enrollment and beyond.
Built to handle the whole job.
Eligibility and enrollment
Real-time eligibility determinations for Medicaid, CHIP, and premium tax credits, connected to federal data sources for secure verification of identity, income, and coverage.
Plan shopping
Clear, consumer-driven tools that let people compare plans on total cost, provider networks, and prescription coverage, so they can choose with confidence.
Reporting
Our reporting module generates the standard CMS reports and IRS 1095 forms alongside a broad set of operational reports. It integrates with visualization and analytics tools such as Tableau to produce management dashboards and trend reports, backed by data warehouse and big data services for deeper analysis.
Shared services
Because the system is built to be shared, states can split the cost of operations and maintenance rather than each paying to build the same thing. This shared-services model has saved money for every state that runs on it.
Considering a state-based marketplace?
Whether you are weighing the move from the federal marketplace or looking to improve the system you already run, we can walk you through what it takes for your state.