Imaging, workflow tech tackle Medicare eligibility

The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) [Now the - DHHS Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services] has turned to imaging and workflow technology to meet a congressional mandate that the agency keep better records of who is eligible for Medicare.

Under law, if a person is covered by private insurance from an employer when he turns 65, Medicare is not supposed to pay any medical bills. ...Congress told HCFA to hire a contractor to collect this information from potentially eligible senior citizens before they filed their first claim.

HCFA wanted to automate their survey (Initial Enrollment Questionnaire, IEQ) as much as possible, said Dianne Whittington, the project officer. The agency turned to a solution by Douglas Consulting & Computer Services (DCCS), a Baltimore 8(a) integrator that uses imaging and workflow technology to process data from the surveys.

Whittington said few vendors who compete for the $16 million, five-year contract offered imaging as part of their solution. "The imaging system that Douglas proposed was very unique," she said, and was appealing because it minimized errors.

Reprint from Federal Computer Week volume 9, number 30