CMS Awards $111 Million Contract for Health IT
(Editor's note: This guest blog was written by Jill Hoffman, managing editor of Executive Insight.)
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has awarded National Government Services Inc. a $111 million contract to support the Next Generation Desktop (NGD) for the next 5 years.
NGD has held the contract since the NGD's inception. The NGD desktop application is used by all Medicare Contact Center Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) to answer millions of calls from Medicare beneficiaries. It reduces the amount of time required to help Medicare beneficiaries and improves the CSRs ability to provide more timely and accurate service for inquiries.
One key function of the application is to allow CSRs to access information the beneficiary may have previously entered into the Medicare Web site, MyMedicare.gov. For example, if someone had been in the process of choosing a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan but needed assistance, that individual could call 1-800-Medicare and the CSR would have the information previously entered at their fingertips.
"Data integration is a critical innovation in the health care IT arena," Tim Masheck, National Government Services vice president of Health Information Technology, explains. "Such technology enables those on the front lines to provide better patient care and a more pleasant experience overall. National Government Services is proud that we were called upon yet again to ensure the integrity of this critical application."
1-800-Medicare received 26 million calls last year with approximately 3,500 CSRs at the call center using the NGD desktop tool to assist callers with their Medicare inquiries.