After a debut of health insurance marketplaces that fit all of the worst government contracting stereotypes, CMS has found a lead contractor to try to improve exchanges into the next decade.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has signed a five-year, $563 million contract with consulting and technology company Accenture to support HealthCare.gov, the federally-run exchange serving 36 states.
Accenture, along with UnitedHealth Group's Optum, came to management and technical rescue for HealthCare.gov as the 2014 open enrollment period brought a dysfunctional website, media parody and concern over the flagship program of the Affordable Care Act.
With a letter contract issued in January, Accenture mobilized a workforce of 500 for 24/7 support of the federal exchange's application, eligibility and enrollment functions.
David Moskovitz, chief executive of Accenture's federal services unit, said they brought architecture changes to increase capacity, expanded outreach to insurers, implemented usability improvements and re-enrollment systems for 2015, and supported the nascent Small Business Health Options Program. "We see this new contract as a strong vote of confidence," Moskovitz said.
CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner called Accenture "an essential member of our team," as CMS focused on the consumer experience at Healthcare.gov.
"Our work in all of these areas will continue under the new contract, as we continuously enhance the capability supporting citizens, issuers and CMS," added said Matt Tait, a senior managing director who leads Accenture's federal exchange work. The long-term intention, he said, is "on simplifying and streamlining the customer experience."
A range of work remains to be done on the back end of HealthCare.gov, and a variety of enhancements are also planned on the consumer end in the coming years, including quality ratings in 2016.
In 2015, CMS is going to start collecting data for the ratings from exchange plans on both state and federally-managed exchanges. "We believe that an approach where each Exchange displays quality ratings calculated by HHS based on a standard scoring methodology allows for reliable, uniform, and comparable QHP ratings across Exchanges," CMS wrote in proposals in the spring of 2014.
After 2016, the agency also wants exchanges to show past enrollee satisfaction results for plans with more than 500 members, based on the Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems Health Plan 5.0 Medicaid survey.