Bill Summary: S307 - North Carolina Smart Card Pilot Program

• Establishes a 6 to 12-month smart card pilot program under the Department of Health and Human Services to replace traditional Medicaid cards and prevent fraud through biometric authentication and recipient verification at point of transaction.

• Smart cards must authenticate recipients and providers, deny ineligible persons, protect personal identity information, and reduce medical assistance expenditures by lowering average cost per recipient.

• Program may include secure web-based systems for transaction recording, eligibility verification, data analytics, multi-recipient card storage, recipient photos on cards, electronic prescribing integration, and coordination with Division of Motor Vehicles for driver's license data.

• Pilot program success is measured by meeting minimum criteria and reducing average monthly recipient costs to recover smart card program expenses, with detailed analysis of claims data comparing pilot and non-pilot areas across four sample sets.

• Department must submit detailed implementation report by June 30, 2012, and all contracts must include HIPAA/HITECH compliance provisions with fraud referrals to the Attorney General; expansion beyond pilot phase requires proof of cost savings.