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DHHS outlines $8 million capital project to build closed‑loop referrals through New Hampshire Care Connections
Summary
Representatives from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services told the Capital Budget and Capital Project Overview Committee about an $8,000,000 Beneficiary Service Improvement capital project that includes a closed‑loop referral system for New Hampshire Care Connections, event notification integration and Medicaid enterprise components.
Representatives from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services presented the Capital Budget and Capital Project Overview Committee with an overview of an $8,000,000 capital project—the Beneficiary Service Improvement project—that includes a closed‑loop referral system intended to link health care and human service providers across the state through the New Hampshire Care Connections network.
David Weeters, chief operating officer for DHHS, said New Hampshire Care Connections “is a network of health care and human service providers,” and described the closed‑loop referral component as an effort to replace manual referrals by fax, phone or email with an integrated, tracked referral and response workflow. “We’re trying to eliminate some of the duplicative effort by having a closed loop referral system,” Weeters said.
DHHS told the committee the $8 million capital project is funded 90 percent by federal funds and 10 percent by general funds and is one piece of a larger Medicaid enterprise strategy. The capital work includes a provider module for Medicaid billing and registration, a third‑party liability component to ensure Medicaid is the payer of last resort, event notification (admission/discharge/transfer) now in maintenance with vendor PointClickCare, and the closed‑loop referral system that is in design, development and implementation.
Weeters and Deputy Commissioner Marissa Henn described several accomplishments and current status updates: DHHS published an online resource inventory with contact information, services and eligibility details; migrated a crisis response solution for the 988 suicide prevention line to avoid service interruption; and launched engagement with community mental health centers, federally qualified health centers and hospitals. Weeters said the event notification system has been implemented across “over 140 skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, and community mental health centers” and that 84 providers are currently on the New Hampshire Care Connections network.
Committee members raised questions about funding classification, procurement history and provider coverage. Representative Burt asked for a clearer breakdown distinguishing capital funds from operating and noncapital support and noted the project’s procurement history dating to 2020, including a sole‑source action during the public health emergency and subsequent re‑bids. DHHS agreed to provide the committee and the Legislative Budget Assistant additional detail offline; Christopher Shea (LBA) had already submitted questions and DHHS said it would respond and permit the LBA to distribute the responses to the committee.
On provider scope, DHHS clarified that the term “provider” refers to an organization operating under a single taxpayer ID (for example, a health system such as Dartmouth Health) and not to individual clinicians; that clarification was provided in response to committee requests for the scale of participation. Weeters said the department is focused on change management, consent and privacy protections under state RSA requirements and noted that some analytic visualizations will be published publicly while protected health or consent‑based data will not.
The presentation was informational; the committee did not take formal action on the DHHS capital project during the meeting. DHHS representatives invited follow‑up questions and agreed to provide additional documentation to the committee and the LBA.
