CMS plans ID management system to meet scalability

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants information on a possible identity management solution, or a set of solutions, that can meet increasing scalability demands and new integrate well with applications across federal and state government lines, as well as healthcare and financial markets.

CMS foresees a need for enterprise-level common services for identity proofing and the creation of an “assurance” level within a workflow process. The assurance level could be as generic as a two-tier approval process or a complex multi-tier process that uses a delegated chain of trust model. CMS also recognizes a need to collect necessary information for a replacement application system to assign role-based access privileges.

CMS is planning for increasing business demands for enterprise services as individuals interact with Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Health Insurance Exchange programs through some type of online access. The system could have between 3 million to 6 million potential users.

With the new system solution, CMS wants, for example, better security compliance standards through controls and auditing, a system that’s easy for customers to use, simplified integration with internal and external systems, and lower costs for maintenance and upgrades.

CMS released its request for information Sept. 15. Responses are due by Oct. 30.