The federal government has ended the lead contract for HealthCare.gov with CGI Federal and secured a new one with Accenture.
Not long after getting a new a head adviser, Microsoft veteran Kurt Delbene, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) intends to sign a one year $90 million contract with IT and consulting company Accenture, and end the contract with the CGI, exchange's lead contractor and the target of criticism after a glitch- and fumble-ridden start, as the Washington Post first reported.
An anonymous federal source told the Post that CMS leaders and the Obama administration have grown frustrated with the slow pace of improvements, with as much as half of the new software code failing to fix the problems on the first try.
The decision comes after another contract switch, for servers, to Hewlett-Packard, and after QSSI, the data services division of UnitedHealth Group's Optum, was named as the general contractor.
The apparent contract's timeline suggests that CMS and the Obama administration are confident Healthcare.gov can accomodate another enrollment surge of several million Americans before the March 31 enrollment deadline.
With health plan data exchange in particular still being a concern along with the consumer experience, they may be hoping to ensure Healthcare.gov will enter 2015 on much sounder footing.
"As CMS moves forward in our efforts to help consumers access quality, affordable health coverage, we have selected Accenture to become the lead contractor for the HealthCare.gov portal and to prepare for next year's open enrollment period," CMS spokesperson Aaron Albright said in a statement.
"We are pleased that more than 1.1 million consumers already have enrolled in a private plan in the federal Marketplace thanks to existing efforts and look forward to working with all of our contract partners to ensure a smooth transition of this work," he added