Over our winter break, Accenture was awarded a continuation of its federal HHS contract for technology work on Healthcare.gov the federal health insurance exchange. CivSource first reported the win for Accenture at the height of the Healthcare.gov maelstrom. The company took over the role from CGI Federal and has worked with other existing developers to correct errors in functionality.
The new award amounts to some $563 million and will go for five years. So far the company has over 500 employees dispatched to work through site issues and customer service. The original contract was set to expire this month, but was extended by six months in order to ensure a smooth service period during the latest open enrollment window.
The new contract was awarded slightly ahead of its original February timetable.
According to a report from the HHS Inspector General, CGI Federal was paid over $200 million for its work on the troubled website before being removed from its role. The company has also been removed from its role in a handful of other states where it was tasked with managing state-run exchanges. Vermont and Massachusetts were among the high profile failures, resulting in sites being taken offline in Vermont. This was also notable in Massachusetts which was the model for health insurance exchanges in the first place and until recently, had been providing marketplace services successfully for a number of years.
Accenture claims it was able to deliver on all repair and improvement requirements once it took over on an accelerated timeline.
