FEI has been a longtime partner of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In our latest project with the agency, which began in June 2022, we have served as a strategic advisor on the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS).

So, what is HIGLAS? It’s an Oracle relational database management system (RDMS). Or, simply put, HIGLAS is a large accounting system – one of the largest in the world – and, along with the Consolidated Budget System (CBS) is CMS’s financial and budget system of record. HIGLAS manages the financial processes and transactions for several lines of CMS business, including Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS), Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP), Federal Facilitated Marketplace (FFM), and Administrative Program Accounting (APA). The system processes roughly 4.5 million Medicare fee-for-service claims every day and more than $1.5 trillion in payments annually. 

Obviously, an agency working on a publicly-funded system that manages so many payments is held to high standards—both in terms of transparency and performance. That’s why CMS sought out experts to independently assess the work of their contractors, hoping to find opportunities to streamline workflows, enhance transparency and security and develop innovative improvements to the HIGLAS system.

Over the last year, we’ve worked with CMS and the agency’s contractors working on HIGLAS to optimize Oracle usage to increase efficiency, adaptability and transparency. This will keep agency time and resources from being spent on unnecessary or time-consuming tasks. We verify and validate business processing flows, procedures, change requests and special projects. We have been tasked with assessing the progress of contractors and ensuring that they adhere to CMS policies.

As we continue to support the growth and evolution of HIGLAS, Medicare financial transactions will be more efficient and secure. As improvements to the system cut down on wait times for reimbursement, beneficiaries will experience fewer delays. And, security enhancements reduce the risk of fraud or identity theft, offering greater protection to the aging and disabled populations who qualify for coverage.