The Kansas Health Policy Authority (KHPA) last week awarded a $119 million, two-year technology services contract extension to HP after the vendor offered to cut its rate for paper and electronic transactions in order to save a much-used customer call center from the budget axe.
The call center process an average of 250,000 calls annually, mostly from providers with billing or payment questions. Kansas has a projected budget gap of $510 million.
HP has provided KPHA with fiscal agent or outsourcing services and operating and maintaining the agency's Medicaid Management Information System for eight years. KPHA oversees the Medicaid fee-for-service program and HealthWave managed care program for more than 300,000 Kansan beneficiaries.
KPHA spokesman Peter Hancock said the call center proposal, was "a huge deal, especially for our providers who have already had to deal with an across-the-board reimbursement rate reduction of 10 percent as a result of budget cuts. If the call center had gone away too, it would have been the final straw for a lot of providers."
HP received a two-year extension to the existing contract, as well as two one-year options. If the options are exercised, the deal will extend the contract out to 2015. As part of the new agreement, HP will continue to enroll providers and process approximately 19 million claims a year on behalf of the state.
Carol Pangborn, HP Account Executive for Kansas Medicaid, called the deal "a reflection of being able to truly understand the business needs of our Medicaid partner so we can react and work together to come up with a solution that benefits everyone involved."
HP, which modernized KPHA's MMIS in 2003, also developed and operates two Web portals for the agency, one directed at providers and one for beneficiaries, and provides Surveillance and Utilization Review for KPHA to detect overpayments, fraud and abuse.
