Accenture already had a previous relationship with Texas' HHSC, having served as a subcontractor for Xerox. Its duties then involved responsibility for data center operations, technology hardware, network operations and more than 100 software applications.
Xerox was let go by the state after it discovered the company allegedly had approved thousands of requests for braces that weren't medically necessary.
“Xerox failed to perform the medical reviews that our contract required and taxpayers deserved,” Dr. Kyle Janek, executive commissioner of HHSC said in a statement. “Dentists were putting braces on children who clearly didn't meet the Medicaid standard for that care, and Xerox didn't have the processes in place to review those cases before paying them.”
The state is suing Xerox over the matter. Xerox had responded that it did nothing fraudulent. “Unfortunately, this misdirected lawsuit focuses on Xerox rather than on the dentists who took advantage of the program,” Xerox spokesman Kevin Lightfoot was quoted as saying in one local report on the lawsuit. “We have never engaged in fraudulent activity and always operated with complete transparency.”
In fiscal 2013, HHSC paid $168 million to Xerox for the services it performed.
Accenture also took over for CGI Group Inc., the company that built Healthcare.gov, after the site struggled severely following its launch.
Follow Virgil Dickson on Twitter: @MHvdickson
