| CIM Inc. | |
Ann Arbor, MI – The Center for Information Management, Inc., an Ann Arbor, MI-based provider of information systems and services for organizations caring for older adults and persons with disabilities, has received a competitive bid award from the State of New York Department of Health (NYSDoH) to automate a new Universal Assessment System (UAS-NY) for use in all Medicaid-funded home and community-based long term care (LTC) programs throughout the state.
For this five-year project, CIM Inc. has entered into a joint venture with two other companies with extensive experience working with New York Medicaid and other health-related programs: GCOM Software, Inc. , an Albany, NY-based technology firm and IPRO (www.ipro.org), a Lake Success, NY-based national provider of healthcare assessment and improvement services.
The new web-based system will be fully customized to address extensive NYSDoH-specific functional requirements and will be created using CIM Inc.’s proprietary web assessment software framework with extensive off-line capabilities supporting in-home assessments and other business processes. When deployed, the system will be used concurrently by up to 7,500 long term care professionals and program managers, working across eight Medicaid LTC waiver programs at the state, regional and local level.
“We have been delighted with the professionalism and technical expertise that CIM Inc. offers to the UAT project,” says Girish Bhatia, Chief Executive Officer of GCOM Software, who will serve as prime contractor for the project. “CIM Inc. has many great software tools as well as extensive experience in this domain – they are a perfect complement to our team here at GCOM.”
Bhatia adds, “Building this system on CIM Inc.’s existing framework will allow us to deliver a more timely and less expensive solution to the State; plus, their in-depth knowledge about home and community-based long term care services adds critical insights and sensitivity to our team as we help New York to leverage technology to reduce Medicaid costs and improve services.”
This project is one of several strategic initiatives of Medicaid Reform Team charged by Governor Cuomo to both reduce costs and improve services. The impetus for this new system was identified by NYS DoH as follows: “The state’s home and community-based programs currently garner client, quality, and provider performance information from many different screening and assessment instruments. The existing tools lack standardization and a common language, which complicates an already fragmented and uncoordinated system of long term care and may not best serve the needs of its recipients, service providers, or payers.”
The goals for implementing this system within the New York’s Medicaid long term care programs are to provide:
Douglas Zimmer, CIM Inc.’s president, describes the partnership to design and create the new UAT system for New York as “an ideal opportunity for our company.” He says, “This project allows us to extend those information tools that we have provided in several other states to another level of sophistication and to work on crucial program improvements with one of the largest state Medicaid long term care programs in the country.”
CIM Inc., founded in 1980, provides hosted applications and custom software services, with specialization in meeting the unique needs of service providers for the aging and disabled. CIM Inc. has customers in Michigan and several other states. CIM Inc.’s flagship product is COMPASS, a comprehensive information system used by the Medicaid-funded MI-Choice home care program in Michigan. Through MI-Choice, Medicaid-eligible frail elderly and persons with disabilities, who struggle with serious medical conditions justifying institutional care, are provided the choice to stay in their homes and communities through paid supports and services.
COMPASS allows MI-Choice administrators to identify potential needs of participants, develop person-centered plans of care and service delivery plans, track costs for Medicaid and other fund sources, and submit claims to Michigan’s Medicaid automated payment system. The COMPASS software suite also includes laptop-based tools to support electronic documentation by case managers. For further information, email: info@ciminc.com.