A CMS spokeswoman said the new contractor responsible for overseeing the HealthCare.gov website could be announced next week.
The previous contractor, Optum, said in May it was stepping away from the job. That contract ended July 31.
Optum came on board after the deeply flawed launch of the federal government's health insurance exchange website in 2014. Consumers and healthcare navigators who helped them had frequent difficulties logging on to the site and finding information.
The company's former group executive vice president, Andy Slavitt, is now acting administrator of the CMS. He was part of a team that improved the site's functionality toward the end of that first open-enrollment period.
By the second open-enrollment period, HealthCare.gov's performance had vastly improved.
In a March report, the Government Accountability Office gave eight recommendations to HHS for improving system-testing processes and oversight, noting that despite improvement to the site, “Weaknesses remain.”
Dan Schuyler, senior director of exchange technology at Leavitt Partners, said the site is still in the middle of a five-year improvement process, and has strong leadership with its current CEO, Kevin Counihan, who formerly ran the Connecticut exchange.
“It will be interesting to see what new improvements have been made,” Schuyler said. He said he expects enrollment numbers will increase and that the consumer experience will be smoother.
There have also been concerns about the site's security and its protection of personal information. In another report last month, the GAO said federal agencies face a number of cybersecurity challenges. In testing HealthCare.gov, the GAO said its investigators used false profiles to enroll in the exchange and were given subsidies.
