SLI continues to expand and deliver support for Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) certification processes for states across the US. Certification support services are required for Medicaid systems projects to meet statutory and regulatory requirements. Certification also allows states to maximize federal funding for the maintenance and operations of these systems.

SILVER SPRING, MD (February 28, 2019) In the most recent example of SLI’s support for CMS certification processes, the State of Wyoming reached a significant milestone this month when the agency learned on February 1st that CMS certified their Pharmacy module. CMS had very few follow-up items for the State to address. In addition, SLI validated and submitted the Initiation Milestone Review (R1) Checklists for three of the remaining six modules being implemented.

In South Carolina SLI specialists recently completed their onsite meetings with CMS for the Final Certification Milestone Review (R3) for the Pharmacy module.  The team finished the on-site certification meetings with only three action items to address. South Carolina executed a modified single Initiation Milestone Review (R1) for all modules and SLI reviewed the checklists prior to submitting them to CMS.

In both cases, the low number of follow up items stemming from these R3 submissions speak not only to the high quality of the work the State’s project teams are producing with completing Certification Checklists but also the high-quality reviews the SLI Teams are delivering and the strong support and consulting experience we offer on this sometimes confusing and challenging process.

SLI is now providing support for the system certification process in nine states: Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, North Dakota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, and Wyoming. Each of these projects is in a different stage of the Medicaid Enterprise Certification Life Cycle (MECL) and has implemented the Medicaid Enterprise Certification Toolkit (MECT) with slight variations. SLI provides guidance and consultation to each of these clients as they progress through the life cycle.

The examples below show highlights from some of our other projects:

• Arizona and Hawaii – SLI was recently awarded an Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) contract to provide certification review and project progress assessment services of the Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) module for Arizona and Hawaii
• Pennsylvania – The Commonwealth is early in the procurement phase of the project. SLI works with them to design a certification process to support a single R1 for all modules, individual or grouped cohort R2, and a single R3 to certify the entire MMIS replacement project once all the modules are implemented. 
• Colorado – The State of Colorado is in the final stages of transforming the existing legacy Eligibility and Enrollment system to Amazon Web Services and a Salesforce platform.  SLI provides IV&V oversight of the Transformation Project and the ongoing maintenance and operations of the system in addition to validating the MEET Checklists.  
• North Dakota – In January 2019 SLI submitted the Final Certification Checklists to CMS for on-site certification meetings the week of February 25th. While the state will not have a formal response from CMS on certification immediately, we are confident the system will be certified. 
• Puerto Rico – SLI assists the agency with planning for the MEET certification.

The South Carolina, Mississippi, and Colorado Eligibility systems were already in the Maintenance and Operations phase when the MEET was released by CMS. Each of these States is pursuing a unique approach to completing the Checklists and executing the Milestone Reviews. SLI supports each of these projects, not only through the validation and review of checklist responses, but also assisted them with crafting their approaches to hybrid Milestone reviews.

“Our experience assisting health and human services agencies navigate the emerging and evolving CMS certification rules permit our delivery teams to make accurate assessments and insightful recommendations,” said Susan Learned, Senior Manager and Quality Director for the Center for Systems Integrity. “Having been awarded IV&V contracts for MECT and MEET early-adopter states has allowed SLI to provide industry-leading oversight services to State agencies and their federal partners. It is gratifying to be able to leverage our lessons learned to benefit all of the states we serve.”

About SLI Global Solutions

SLI Global Solutions (SLI) is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, with project locations in over a dozen capital cities across the US. SLI is committed to helping state agencies build quality and innovation into their system implementations and program improvement initiatives. SLI is committed to the use of a standards-based quality management methodology that has been proven effective in a wide range of system implementations and process improvement projects. SLI’s SQM3 methodology is ISO 9001:2015 certified. SLI has experienced staff ready to support your quality and risk management needs on both agile and traditional systems development projects.