AUGUSTA — The Affordable Care Act is ushering in a series of changes in the way businesses provide health insurance to their workers.

Effective immediately, for example, small businesses can qualify for special tax credits aimed at offsetting insurance costs.

But who exactly is eligible? What does it take to receive it? And can non-profit organizations qualify?

Those are the types of questions a new consortium of Maine businesses and trade groups are at work trying to answer in hopes of making it easier for businessmen and women to find their way through the myriad provisions of the new health care law.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, was in downtown Augusta on Thursday to learn about this consortium and two other projects aimed at educating Maine residents about the health care law and developing ways to contain health care costs.

The Maine Development Foundation is coordinating the group of businesses with the help of a $37,000 grant from the Maine Health Access Foundation.

“It’s clear there will need to be some technical assistance to businesses on this,” said Patricia Hart, senior program director at the Maine Development Foundation.

The grant will allow businesspeople in Maine to outline their questions about the new law, Hart said, and the Maine Development Foundation plans to develop a way “to get the information out.”