CMS to migrate claims processing to enterprise data centers

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is seeking information about industry capabilities to move Medicare Fee-for-Service claims processing from the current Medicare data centers to CMS' enterprise data centers, a critical component of Medicare modernization.

The enterprise data centers will provide greater control of operations, greater flexibility in meeting future challenges and a reduction in the number of data centers.

A future contractor will support implementation of enterprise data center tasks, such as facility and application infrastructure deployment, and establishing and monitoring the application deployment project plan, CMS said in its posting earlier this week on FedBizOpps.gov

Traditional Medicare claims currently are processed at 15 Medicare data centers throughout the country. Claims processing involve 33 Medicare contractors, who use four different systems to process claims for hospital, doctor and medical-equipment services and the
Common Working File, a database of claims activity for each beneficiary. CMS maintains 54 separate contracts for this work.

CMS considers experience with Medicare data center processing and Medicare regulations critical. Vendors should submit information by Sept. 27.