EDS takes on Medicare and Medicaid fraud

EDS Corp. won two, five-year task orders worth an estimated $120 million to deliver IT support for antifraud programs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The task orders were awarded under the Medicare Prescription Drug Integrity Contractor contract, called MEDIC, established in 2005. Each task order consists of one base year and four one-year options.

Under the One Program Integrity task order, EDS will consolidate data warehousing and analytics for contractors and others responsible for detecting fraud and abuse in CMS programs. The company will develop a data repository, input state Medicaid data into the repository, and install analytics software.

It also will develop a Web portal for users to securely access the data. The Web portal and analytics will support access to CMS' integrated data repository, which contains Medicare information.

The work will give regional contractors, which make Medicaid and Medicare payments, a simpler way to access information and compare data, Don Picard, EDS' vice president of civilian healthcare, said in a statement.

"CMS will not have to maintain multiple tools and data warehouses for information related to claims for inpatient care, professional services and prescription drugs," he said.

Under the MEDIC North Region task order, EDS will support CMS' audit, oversight and antifraud and abuse efforts for the Medicare prescription drug program in 25 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

EDS of Plano, Texas, offers IT solutions and business process outsourcing services to the public and private sectors.

The company, which has about 117,000 employees and posted $19.8 billion in fiscal 2005 revenue, ranks No. 9 on Washington Technology's 2006 Top 100 list the largest federal IT contractors.