Portal Aids in Part D Enrollment

HDM Breaking News, June 19, 2008

 

Southborough, Mass.-based ikaSystems has introduced a Web portal service to automate the verification, application, enrollment, and membership and payment reconciliation processes of consumers eligible for the Medicare Part D drug benefit plan.

The portal, called ikaMedicareGateway, also links to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Part D database, called MARx, to reconcile records with the database to reduce errors, according to the vendor.

The portal, developed with GovernmentWorks, a CMS contractor, is being marketed to Medicare Advantage carriers and other Part D benefit plans.

UPMC Health Plan in Pittsburgh and MVP Health care in Schenectady, N.Y., are early adopters of the portal. UPMC Health Plan served as a pilot site, and the technology helped facilitate rapid expansion of Part D enrollment during the past year, says Ed McCallister, CIO. Previously, if the plan sent 100 applications to CMS, responses would come back in several batches over several weeks and four UPMC Health Plan staff members would reconcile the data. “It was a constant reconciliation process with CMS,” McCallister recalls. Now, enrollment into the program occurs in minutes, he adds.

The vendor introduced the portal technology at the America’s Health Insurance Plans’ Institute 2008 in San Francisco. More information is available at ikasystems.com.

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