CMS Awards Bellese Technologies Contract Extension for Medicare Payment System Modernization (MPSM)

(OWINGS MILLS, MARYLAND) The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently awarded Bellese Technologies a 12-month extension for its Medicare Payment System Modernization (MPSM) contract.

Under the direction of the Office of Information Technology (OIT), Bellese’s MPSM work will continue modernizing systems that process Medicare claims. Starting in 2018, the team’s work has largely focused on converting legacy products written in COBOL to a more contemporary technology stack.

These products (called pricers) are critical to Medicare Part A claim processing and operations. Over the course of 2018 when this work first started, these pricers processed $190.7 billion in claims. The same year National Health Expenditures (NHE) accounted for 17.7% of US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Medicare spending was 21% of all NHE.

Bellese has collaborated with CMS to deliver 5 modernized pricer applications as application programming interfaces (APIs) hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Bellese has helped create and shape the infrastructure adopted by other programs for cloud-based modernization initiatives within the MPSM ecosystem.

In addition to the APIs that take the place of the legacy COBOL programs, there are downloadable versions of these pricers that allow providers to estimate Medicare Payments. The team is replacing the downloadable pricers with web-based applications, thereby allowing providers convenient access through a web browser and reducing maintenance costs.

“Not only did we modernize applications, infrastructure, and technology – we also helped to modernize and streamline many processes involved in making regular updates to the pricing programs. We implemented service design, agile methodologies, CI/CD pipelines, integrated with an external testing team, and greatly reduced the time to production for pricing changes” said Eric Harris, MPSM Engineering Team Lead for Bellese.

Over the next year, the team will continue its focus on converting remaining COBOL and downloadable pricers into modern, maintainable, and cost-effective products.

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ABOUT BELLESE TECHNOLOGIES

Founded in 2009, Bellese Technologies is a human-centered service design company in the Baltimore metro area. Bellese partners with health and human services clients in the public and private sectors. The firm leverages modern technology, human-centered design, and silo-busting collaboration to help its clients expand and accelerate the positive impact they have on society. Currently, Bellese works with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, supporting price transparency, Medicare payment system modernization, and quality of care initiatives.

Bellese holds the GSA IT 70 Schedule and two CMS agile blanket purchase agreements (BPA) — the Medicare Payment System Modernization (MPSM) BPA and the Agile Delivery to Execute Legislative Endeavors-Quality Related Initiatives (ADELE-QRI) BPA.

Bellese was recently recognized as a “Best Place to Work” by the Baltimore Sun for the second year in a row. Visit bellese.io/careers for more information on careers at Bellese.