CDS Completes Large-Scale Transition of Medicare Data ...( COLUMBIA S.C. Feb. 5 ...),Health

COLUMBIA, S.C., Feb. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Companion Data Services, LLC (CDS) announced today that it has successfully completed a 20-month-long project to transition Medicare claims data from 11 data centers around the country into its Medicare Enterprise Data Center (EDC) in Columbia.

The work is part of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) initiative to consolidate electronic data processing and hosting operations into state-of-the-art EDCs in support of the overall Medicare Contracting Reform Initiative. Objectives are to modernize Medicare operations, expand electronic services, bolster security, increase efficiency and lower costs. In 2006, CMS awarded a $1.9 billion, 10-year contract to three companies - CDS, EDS and IBM - to operate the new EDCs.

CDS, headquartered in Columbia, S.C., was assigned to transition into its EDC computer applications that process approximately 800 million Medicare claims each year, submitted to claims-processing contractors by physicians, hospitals and other health care providers in 30 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. CDS' workload represents approximately 63 percent of the nation's total Medicare claims volume.

CDS kicked off the transition in June 2007, and completed the task this month. Now, all claims within CDS' assigned states are being processed through the CDS data center.

"We are very proud of our work on this project, and also want to recognize the outstanding work of CMS and the Medicare contractors we support," said Steve Barlow, CDS' vice president and EDC program manager. "We look forward to building on this success and working with CMS and its partners to further consolidate and modernize the Medicare IT environment."

About CDS

Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., Companion Data Services ('/>"/>