AT-A-GLANCE
A self-sustaining, highly operational alternative solution
The Accountable Care Organization Management System (ACO-MS) is a tool used to manage the Medicare Shared Savings Program (SSP) and the Medicare Electronic Application Request Information System (MEARiS™). ACO-MS was recently redesigned to modernize its system to better support the case management and workflow of the ACOs and Center for Medicare (CM) users.
The Challenge
As the demands surrounding the SSP increased, the legacy application began showing signs of depreciation.
Several ACOs struggled to generate, manage, and maintain reliable process workflows using the system, which was the only means for handling their work products.
The Payoff
“A quick note of thanks to each and every one of you for your incredib[ly] hard work these past few weeks as we launch [the] new ACO-MS.”
– ACO-MS Administrator User
ACO-MS rehabilitated a valued process by reimagining a future state.
ACO-MS runs on a reliable Softrams-built AWS cloud platform, with open-source technologies used to streamline process workflows, user experience, and product expansion. Its infrastructure includes a full-bodied AWS tool suite of Lambda, Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Batch, and Route53 to manage its highly scalable, serverless environment; AWS Elasticsearch, AWS Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), AWS CloudWatch, and Amazon CloudFront to meet data demands; and API Gateway, AWS Secrets Manager, AWS Key Management Service (KMS), and Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles to maintain a reliable and secure environment. ACO-MS’s microservices ecosystem is managed using Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Amazon EventBridge, and Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS).
ACO-MS reviewer workflow screen
What we did
“I've really liked the ACO-MS system in general. It's really intuitive and it's clean, and the menu store you can get in and figure things out. So, I'm happy to have it added here and sort of reducing our step to somewhere else and having to do multiple adds.”
- ACO User
ACO-MS is a backbone system providing a foundation for managing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’s) high-priority “Pathways to Success” initiative saving more than $1.1 billion for the Medicare Trust Fund to date and serving 10.9 million Medicare beneficiaries receiving care from SSP ACO Providers. The ACO-MS teams support scope changes to accommodate these high-priority initiatives that are designed to enroll more ACOs into a two-sided risk model. The architecture and environment we built for ACO-MS accommodated the complex policy changes in a short time, enabling us to support two application cycles and the ACOs to effectively complete their enrollment processes.
The system is the first of its kind to use a Docker-based, containerized microservices architecture. With scalable and highly operational technologies at its core, ACO-MS allows users to conduct real-time data validations, automate program deliverables, and reduce application run cycles.
The system is the first of its kind to use a Docker-based, containerized microservices architecture. With scalable and highly operational technologies at its core, ACO-MS allows users to conduct real-time data validations, automate program deliverables, and reduce application run cycles.
A very stable and high-functioning application
ACO-MS is a backbone system providing a foundation for managing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’s) high-priority “Pathways to Success” initiative saving more than $1.1 billion for the Medicare Trust Fund to date and serving 10.9 million Medicare beneficiaries receiving care from SSP ACO Providers. The ACO-MS teams support scope changes to accommodate these high-priority initiatives that are designed to enroll more ACOs into a two-sided risk model. The architecture and environment we built for ACO-MS accommodated the complex policy changes in a short time, enabling us to support two application cycles and the ACOs to effectively complete their enrollment processes.
The system is the first of its kind to use a Docker-based, containerized microservices architecture. With scalable and highly operational technologies at its core, ACO-MS allows users to conduct real-time data validations, automate program deliverables, and reduce application run cycles.
The system is the first of its kind to use a Docker-based, containerized microservices architecture. With scalable and highly operational technologies at its core, ACO-MS allows users to conduct real-time data validations, automate program deliverables, and reduce application run cycles.
ACO-MS plan metrics dashboard
The Results/Metrics (numbers)
“This system is a significant improvement over the old way of entering this data. Nice work!”
- ACO User
“I know my team really likes ACO-MS versus the other systems.”
- ACO User
PY 2020 vs. PY 2022 NOIA Comparison
ACO Applicant Type
PY 20226/7/2021 12PM(Gates Closed)
PY 20206/28/2019 12PM(Gates Closed)
Change%
Initial
222
187
19% Increase
Renewal
127
119*
7% Increase
Early Renewal
85
14
507% Increase
Total
434
302
36% Increase
In 2021, Softrams helped our customers to achieve significant infrastructure savings.
ACO-MS / MEARis savings of:
$75K+
