The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has awarded a four-year contract to Columbia, S.C.-based Companion Data Services, LLC (CDS) for data center operations that support Medicare claims processing in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.
The Medicare Enterprise Data Center in Columbia will be responsible for electronic data processing and hosting operations that handle an estimated 140 million Medicare claims per year submitted by healthcare providers in the four states.
CDS was chosen to perform similar data center work last year in support of claims processing in 30 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. When operations in the four states have been set up, approximately 790 million Medicare fee-for-service claims, or about 65 percent of the nation's total, will be processed through CDS' data center each year, according to reports.
"We are extremely pleased with CMS' decision to move additional Medicare claims processing into our data center," said Phil Surine, CDS' account director. "The modernization and consolidation of Medicare's operations is a great accomplishment for the program, and we are very excited to be a part of it."
CDS' contract is part of CMS' plan to consolidate more than 20 of its data centers into three Enterprise Data Centers, said officials. Objectives are to modernize Medicare operations, expand electronic services, bolster security and lower costs.
In 2006, CMS awarded a 10-year contract to CDS, EDS and IBM to operate the new Enterprise Data Centers. The contract qualifies the companies to compete for task orders with a total value of $1.9 billion.