The Department of Health and Human Services in Michigan (MDHHS) needed to scale its Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) platform and related business applications after Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act.

MDHHS’ Medicaid program administrators needed to reduce operational costs and simplify IT service management on a secure platform that protected data access. Acentra Health designed and implemented the nation’s first entirely digital MMIS, later upgrading the platform to cloud deployment with real-time automation. The operational savings for both Michigan and technology-adopting neighbor state Illinois exceed $20 million.

Challenge

Following its original Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) implementation decades ago, Michigan’s platform lacked the modern technological updates that would allow the state health agency to:

  • Scale rapidly and guarantee high performance of the company’s MMIS solution platform and business applications in the wake of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion;
  • Reduce operational expenses and simplify IT management via virtualization and consolidation;
  • Provide a secure environment for patient healthcare data; and
  • Meet service level agreements for data protection and availability through accelerated backup and restore operations.

Solution

CNSI began working with Michigan in 2006, designing and implementing the first-ever completely Web-based MMIS in the U.S. and revolutionizing Medicaid in the state. The development of the Michigan Community Health Automated Medicaid Processing System (CHAMPS) was just the beginning of a longstanding partnership with Michigan. Six years later, CNSI and Michigan embarked on another first-of-a-kind industry innovation by implementing a completely automated real-time and cloud-enabled MMIS.

Results

The Michigan cloud-based solution is built on a multi-state governance model, meaning more than one state can employ the same Medicaid platform to reduce costs. The solution aligns with Michigan’s Executive goal to “Reinvent our Government” by implementing new innovations for government, and supports Michigan’s IT Strategic Plan and Cloud First strategy.

In 2013, it was announced that Illinois would join Michigan in employing a common MMIS platform. The first phase of the project, the Electronic Medicaid Incentive Payment Program (eMIPP), went live for Illinois in March 2014.  In July of 2015, the Provider Enrollment (PE) phase of the project was implemented, allowing hundreds of thousands of Illinois healthcare providers to seamlessly manage their enrollments in the cloud-based provider system. The final phase to roll out the remaining Michigan modules of the cloud MMIS was completed in 2017, with Illinois implementing its remaining modules in 2018.

Success

The cloud solution creates savings for both states and the federal government, providing opportunities for Michigan and Illinois to share knowledge and resources, and leverage efficiencies to effectively implement federally mandated operating rules and compliance standards. The system adheres to the highest standards of data security ensuring the integrity of state healthcare data.

Illinois has realized significant savings of $10 million by implementing eMIPP and Provider Enrollment on Michigan’s cloud compared to traditional standalone development. Implementation savings are due primarily to a reduced timeline and reduced infrastructure costs. In addition, Illinois is projected to save $20M in operations costs over 5 years through shared operations and infrastructure costs. Michigan is projected to realize 10 percent operational savings.

Michigan has revolutionized the delivery of Medicaid services. Michigan Medicaid as a Service has diminished the burden on taxpayers while improving the delivery of care to those in need, representing the best public health IT has to offer.