Federal officials on Monday announced that the Kansas Insurance Department had been awarded a $3.1 million grant for enhancing the technologies it uses to review health insurance rate increases, promote rate transparency, educate consumers, and hold insurance companies accountable.

Similar grants from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were awarded to 20 other states.

The grants, totaling $67.6 million, are meant to ensure state reviews of proposed health insurance rate increases of 10 percent or more. The reviews are a key cost-control element of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

In addition to the technology enhancements, a portion of the grant will be used to develop a “consumer friendly” website for sharing non-personal data as well as in-state reports on health care costs, quality and outcomes.

The grant also will underwrite the insurance department’s “…work with partners at the Kansas Health Institute and University of Kansas to study data available and prepare fee schedules and other reports that accurately reflect charges for medical services,” Neil Woerman, the department’s director of information technology, wrote in an email to KHI News Service.

The Kansas Health Institute is the parent organization of KHI News Service.