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What's Next

As part of the CT METS project under the direction of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Social Services (DSS) will procure three separate vendors that will support the project with key competencies spanning Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V), Organizational Change Management (OCM), and System Integration (SI).

Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Update:

The IV&V Scope of Work includes the vendor’s independent and unbiased perspective toward the quality of the project with reporting at certain checkpoints. The vendor represents interests for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding conditions surrounding Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) reporting. The IV&V vendor is a third-party entity providing unbiased oversight. The vendor monitors and makes recommendations that support overall quality assurance to the program.

The State has followed a two-step process to establish an IV&V contract for the CT METS project.

  • As a first step, the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for Independent Verification and Validation services with the purpose of establishing a contract for a pool of qualified vendors.
  • Second, DSS reviewed and narrowed the pool of qualified vendors and issued a Request for Quote (RFQ) with response of a Statement of Work (SOW) to be received and undergo an evaluation process, which will conclude with one vendor selected to provide IV&V services for the CT METS project. As required by CMS, IV&V vendors, including any of their subsidiaries or subcontractors, who respond to CT METS IV&V services statements of work, are excluded from procurements to provide other CT METS services and modules.

The anticipated timeline to onboard the IV&V vendor is early 2020.

Organizational Change Management (OCM) Update:

The OCM Scope of Work includes engagement of internal and external stakeholders through a defined communication plan.  This plan integrates stakeholders’ feedback into the business process mapping and readiness assessment. A subsequent training plan to ensure established requirements and capabilities to secure successful knowledge transfer and new skills adoption is the final segment. 

Expectations for onboarding is estimated in early 2020.

System Integrator (SI) Update:

The SI Scope of Work includes analysis and assessment, recommendations, and integration. The SI vendor will help prepare and lead the design, development, and implementation of a new modular-technology Medicaid enterprise. Through collaboration with the OCM vendor, the SI vendor will map the current business processes including shared services and assets for reuse to inform the design of the future environment. This future environment will include recommendations for approach to systems modularity and deployment sequence. The SI vendor will further recommend solutions and alternatives, ensuring Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) modularity standards actively integrate data integrity and interoperability of modules. Through a finalized concept of operations, integration with roadmaps and evaluation models guiding the design will be established.

The SI RFP is closed and currently under evaluation by the Department of Administrative Services (DAS).