Medicare Electronic Application Request Information System (MEARIS)

Cloud Development
HX
Mobile Friendly
The shift from a paper-based collection system to a user focused digital platform that supports application submission, communication, revision and inter-team collaboration has been hugely successful and met with incredible gratification by all users. The serverless architecture has led to further cost-savings, enhanced security, simpler packaging and deployment.
“I can communicate with the applicants from within the system. Saves me some phone calls.”
- MEARIS User
THE PROBLEM
An antiquated manual process that resulted in unnecessary paperwork, delays, manpower and costs.
The current practice of public application and request submission, and CMS review and processing relies on paper based data collection and time-intensive manual review procedures. Record maintenance, accessibility, sharing, and communication is limited to its real world existence and leads to an increasing cost of storage, upkeep, and manual handling staff costs.
THE SOLUTION
Softrams offers modernization.
A user-focused digital platform supporting application submissions, communication, and revisions side by side with CMS review and processing procedures. Inter-team collaboration is bridged by an electronic invitation system to work together. In addition, a serverless architecture enables a pay-per-use cost model for the hosted services.
WHAT WE DID!
“Now I can provide the relevant and meaningful data much more easily."
- MEARIS User
A mobile-first user experience that allows data submission and access from a secure online web front.
Electronic Data Collection
Completely on line self guided data submission with intermittent save capability.
Collaborative Data gathering
Multiple users can provide data for the same application.
Granular Access Controls
Specify role based access control for sensitive data.
Centralized Information Access
Secured online record access, maintenance, sharing, and communication.
Easy Access Dashboard
Single view for upcoming tasks, recent applications, and processing metrics.
Cloud Based Hosting
Serverless architecture lends itself to cost savings in infrastructure deployment and maintenance.
INSTEAD OF WORDS,
LET THE NUMBERS SPEAK.
12
Applications
converted from paper to web form
70
Pages
for a typical paper based data submission
350
Processed
applications in a fiscal year
16
Months
from concept to delivery
54
Million
Medicare beneficiaries served
HOW WE DID IT?
“The Site navigation is so fluid it eliminates user anxiety from massive web forms"
- MEARIS User
Using Human-Centric Design, Agile delivery using the USDS playbook, and DevOps practices, Softrams, partnered with Center for Medicare (CM), to bring to life a modern web application built with cutting edge cloud technology.
Discover
Vision and Roadmap
Ideate
Human Centric Design
Build
Mordern web development using Angular and Node.js
Iterate
Agile SCRUM Development
Proof
User Acceptance and Usability Testing
Reflect
Looking forward to modernizing other paper-based processes leveraging the same platform to improve quality of data intake, enhance applicant experience, and reduce processing costs for CMS.

Using an AWS Lambda-connected Amazon API gateway, the scalable system can support periodic workload peaks. The suite also includes Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Cloud Watch for its data management; AWS Secrets Manager for added security; AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) and Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) for notifications;  and AWS Code Build for continuous integration and delivery, with AWS Code Deploy recently added.