The public health insurance exchanges and federal agencies have had a hard time starting a major exchange user data reporting program.
Many of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange managers missed the January deadline for filing full-year 2014 exchange periodic data (EPD) reports with the Internal Revenue Services (IRS), and system glitches slowed IRS data processing of the 2014 EPD reports that did come in, according to investigators at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The IRS says it now has the complete 2014 EPD information for all but one state, but GAO officials say the filing and processing delays forced the IRS to start using backup procedures to enforce PPACA premium subsidy tax credit rules.
See also: What agents have to know about IRS PPACA problems
Exchange managers say some of the delays were the result of the exchanges’ need for more guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the IRS about what to put in the EPD reports.