And More On The Big IT Contracts

From Information Week:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has selected four prime contractors under the Information Technology Support Services Contract (ITSSC) that will be used, in part, to acquire health information technology that works with electronic health record (EHR) systems to process applications for disability benefits.

The ITSSC includes a one-year base period plus six additional one-year options with an aggregate ceiling valued at $2.8 billion.

The four prime contractors under ITSSC are Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp., Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin.

While those companies could bid on various "tasks" that SSA might order, the agency has provided direction to each prime contractor about the type of work they'd most likely be expected to participate in, said Accenture managing director Steve Shane in an interview with InformationWeek.

"All four companies are prime contractors, but SSA has directed different paths" for each, he said.

For instance, Accenture's focus is on "emerging technologies," including projects involving analytics, mobile, and web portals, Shane said. Accenture will also focus on integrating data from EHRs into SSA systems to assist in disability and other entitlement program determinations, he said.

I have to ask the question: Are electronic records really worth this kind of money to Social Security?

Update: And by the way, Social Security should have put out its own press release on this. Accenture's press release was really misleading.

Maybe Accenture's Contract Isn't So Big

A comment posted below is worth noting:

This news release is very misleading....Accenture got only a part of this potential contract and not the full potential amount.

It went to 4 vendors.....and the bulk of the money goes to Lockheed Martin....

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=8372314c59b0d6808e179923a57fe4d3

Not Everyone Loves Accenture

Accenture, which just announced a huge new contract with Social Security, has its detractors. Take a look at the company's profile on crocodyl.

$2.8 Billion Contract For Accenture

From a press release:

The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) has selected Accenture (NYSE: ACN) as a prime contractor under the Information Technology Support Services Contract (ITSSC) that will be used to acquire a wide range of IT systems development and modernization services. The ITSSC includes a one-year base period plus six additional one-year options with an aggregate ceiling valued at $2.8 billion.

Under the contract, Accenture will implement emerging technology applications designed to improve SSA’s service delivery capabilities to current beneficiaries and future retirees. Task orders issued under the contract may request services such as evaluating ways to integrate data from health records more seamlessly, expanding Web and social media to enhance user accessibility, and applying predictive models and analytics capabilities to SSA’s business.

Accenture is a spinoff of Arthur Andersen, an accounting firm. Accenture was incorporated originally in Bermuda and is now incorporated in Ireland. Its headquarters are now in New York. It is a multinational consulting company with 200,000 employees.

A Happy Ending

I had given a link in August to the story of a West Des Moines woman with Down syndrome who had been declared overpaid $4,425 by Social Security. The overpayment was apparently the result of computational errors at Social Security. The story has a happy ending. Even though it appears that the woman's family filed no request for waiver, waiver was still granted.

What would have happened without the media attention?

Rhodes Scholar Gets New Social Security Number And Uses It To Commit Fraud

From CBS News:

Former Alaskan beauty queen and Rhodes scholar, Rachel Yould, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison and ordered to pay more than $700,000 in restitution [in September] after pleading guilty in a peculiar case of fraud and double identities.

Federal prosecutors indicted the Oxford University Ph.D. candidate last December on felony charges of mail, wire fraud and making false statements to influence a bank. The 38-year-old Yould, born Rachel Hall, had claimed her father sexually abused and stalked her and allegedly took on a new identity under a Social Security Administration program that aims to help rape and domestic violence victims hide from their abusers.

There is a longer Jeffrey Toobin piece in the New Yorker on this peculiar story but you have to subscribe to read it.

She's definitely not my relative.

A Long, Slow March

The New York Times has an article today about two brothers trying to make a business of helping physicians change over to electronic records. They have found it “a long, slow march" and "a lot harder getting to a business that is self-sustaining than" they had imagined even though they seem to have some good ideas.

Electronic medical records may not be coming as fast as these two brothers had hoped or as fast as Social Security would like.

OIG Report On Disability Recipients Who Return To Work

Representative Sam Johnson, the ranking Republican on the House Social Security Subcommittee, asked Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) to do a report on Social Security's efforts to deal with the cases of disability recipients who return to work. OIG has reported back that Social Security is working hard on the issue but that Social Security has a backlog of these cases. The agency could do more if it had more resources. The report notes that:

SSA convened a “Work CDR [Continuing Disability Review] Workgroup” in January 2010 to identify and implement improvements and adopted the following recommendations:

• Dedicated staff to target the oldest cases—initially, cases over 365 days old, then a gradual reduction of the age threshold;
• Prioritized earnings alerts by amount of earnings and worked cases with highest earnings to minimize overpayments;
• Improved communication between operational components; and
• Allocated additional staff resources to conduct work CDRs [Continuing Disability Reviews].

The report also notes that the agency is working on a proposal to simplify its work policies to "reduce administrative complexity and workloads through program simplification" and to "encourage more DI [Disability Insurance] beneficiaries to return to work." I hope this is true and that the proposal is being developed on a different time frame than the nine year Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND).