Outreach and Communications Digital Engagement System (OCDES)

CMS is currently utilizing the Software-as-a-Service (Saas) brand name product called govDelivery as our Outreach and Communications Digital Engagement System (OCDES) through a task order awarded under GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) with Carahsoft (a reseller for govDelivery). CMS is seeking to revise the current overall period of performance of the task order in order to negotiate and incorporate two (2) additional twelve (12) month extension periods.

The current OCDES is highly customized with a variety of features and settings on each of the supported websites and has a series of complicated workflows, system-to-system integrations, data transfers functions, and customized message templates that have been designed based on the website it supports. This includes major dependencies and integration points between multiple CMS systems. As part of key objectives for several Agency initiatives and the current open enrollment period, these integrations are currently being updated to improve workflows, data transfer capabilities, and will help to improve customer experience.

CMS also anticipates that the process to restructure or rebuild the current highly customized workflows and features would involve multiple contractors, require multiple system and website changes, and could take an extended amount of time to re-design, build, test and implement and could introduce potential risks to CMS meeting its outreach and communication goals and impact other Agency initiatives.

Rebuilding the reporting dashboards and transferring the data that is stored in these systems to a new system will require CMS Leadership review and approval, since the current system is being used by CMS to enhance our reporting capabilities that track our engagements with beneficiaries and their caregivers as well as our partners and stakeholders. These custom reports and dashboards are currently provided to CMS Leadership to demonstrate the success of the messages sent and the actions that beneficiaries take because of those messages.

There are transactional message workflows and integrations that send messages to beneficiaries based on the actions they take while visiting our website. These tools have been integrated within CMS websites and are updated as those websites change. There are also integrations with other third-party tools to transfer data to other contractors and tools that are used by CMS to continually grow our audience size and send billions of email messages to CMS beneficiaries and other stakeholders.

There are also major dependencies between systems and several integrations that are currently being updated to improve workflows and data transfer capabilities in progress. These major integrations include but are not limited to the following systems:

Beneficiary Experience Data Analytics Platform (BEDAP) which contains and organizes beneficiary experience data, shape personalized and targeted message campaigns supporting a beneficiary’s ability to understand their services and healthcare benefits in addition to promoting upcoming initiatives and activities.

Medicare Authenticated Experience (MAX) which streamlined account access and offers personalized tools and increased functionality to improve customer experience. Many messages that were housed on the legacy MyMedicare.gov site have been migrated using complex workflows and system integrations with the current contractor. The MAX Message Center provides self-service capability to Medicare beneficiaries in an integrated, personalized, and seamless customer experience via an omni-channel delivery that is personalized and meets beneficiaries’ needs.

Medicare Message Center will integrate with the new external email service and provide enhanced outreach capabilities by allowing targeted messages to be sent to beneficiaries based on claims data to facilitate more active participation in health care decisions.