The State of Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has awarded a $179 million, seven-year, firm-fixed-price contract to Unisys, an IT solutions and services provider, to provide a new Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) to manage Maine’s current and future Medicaid program.

“We look forward to working with Unisys to implement a proven and successful innovative system and fiscal-agent services to support the management and evolution of MaineCare,” said Brenda Harvey, Commissioner, State of Maine DHHS. “This new MMIS will serve as our platform for attaining the State’s vision for healthcare excellence.”

Under the terms of the contract, Unisys will be responsible for design, development, implementation and operation of the MMIS and assisting the state to manage the Medicaid program, known as MaineCare. The provider will also support the customer by providing many claims and customer-service functions and will provide systems to help administer health-care management.

In addition, Unisys will also be looking after the state’s hardware and software hosting, information management and data warehousing needs. It will also provide a connection to Maine’s eligibility system.

The award builds on recent Unisys success winning contracts to support state Medicaid programs, including a contract award in Dec. ’07 to provide systems and services for Idaho’s Medicaid program. Unisys also provides Medicaid systems and services to the states of Louisiana, New Jersey and West Virginia.

Unisys will provide Health PAS solution, a multipayer health-care administration system and federally certified MMIS solution comprised of commercial software applications customized and fully integrated to form a comprehensive health information management solution.