BALTIMORE--As part of its plan to modernize Medicare operations and lower costs by establishing enterprise data centers, CMS has recently awarded two contracts valued at $228 million.
Last week, the agency awarded a six-year, $28 million contract to Columbia, S.C.-based Companion Data Services for hosting operations to support its 1-800-MEDICARE national data warehouse. The Medicare help line operates 24/7, and customer service representatives answer about 40 million calls each year, according to CDS.
In February, CDS also snagged a $200 million six-year contract to support electronic data processing and hosting operations for approximately 650 million fee-for-service claims submitted in 30 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The contract represents the majority share of a CMS task order for the processing of 841 million Medicare claims per year.
CDS said the contract will result in about 40 new jobs at its program management office in Dallas, and 10 new positions at its data center in Columbia, S.C. The additional workload means approximately 54 percent of all Medicare claims will be processed through CDS' data center by January 2008.
Both contracts are part of CMS' plan to consolidate more than 20 current data centers in order to expand electronic services, bolster security and lower costs. In 2006, the agency awarded a 10-year contract to three companies to operate new data centers: CDS, EDS and IBM. The selection qualified those companies to compete for approximately $1.9 billion in work, CDS said.
CDS is a wholly owned subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield of
South Carolina.
