Medicare News
| For Immediate Release: | Contact: |
| Friday, April 04, 1997 | CMS Office of Public Affairs 202-690-6145 |
For questions about Medicare please call 1-800-MEDICARE or visit www.medicare.gov. |
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CHANGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MEDICARE TRANSACTION SYSTEM
The Health Care Financing Administration announced today that it is exploring other options to develop its Medicare Transaction System (MTS) and focusing its short-term goals on managed care transactions. MTS will provide a new information platform (software, hardware, and infrastructure) to pay for health care under the Medicare program, meet Medicare beneficiaries' customer service needs, and enable Medicare to deter costly fraud and abuse.
HCFA Administrator, Bruce C. Vladeck said,"While our vision of MTS as the best information technology to take Medicare into the 21st century has not changed in the least, our responsibility for sound management of this important project has caused us to revise our development plans."
HCFA currently has GTE under contract to develop MTS, and has closely monitored and consistently reviewed its oversight and direction of the GTE contract. As a result of the most recent management review, HCFA has decided to redirect GTE's contract activities to focus solely on the development of that part of MTS dealing with managed care plans.
"This concentration on managed care gives both GTE and HCFA the best opportunity for success," said Vladeck. "GTE's work in this area will enable us to better serve both managed care plans and our beneficiaries who enroll in them, while we examine alternative ways to achieve our goals for other aspects of the MTS." HCFA will continue to review how to best work under contract to use the expertise of private corporations in developing the MTS.
In the meantime, HCFA will continue to consolidate its payment systems to a standard system for hospital bills and a standard system for physician bills. This will simplify current operations in preparation for the eventual implementation of the single MTS system. Similarly, HCFA will continue to implement improved customer service initiatives already underway. HCFA officials emphasized that any new approaches to developing the MTS would not adversely impact the agency's relationships with beneficiaries and health care providers.
