Alabama Medicaid awarded HP Enterprise Services a $135 million, eight-year technology services contract to manage its Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) and help the state meet federal HIPAA regulations, address healthcare reform and cut costs.

Carol Steckel, commissioner of Alabama Medicaid, said the new system will automate some of the labor-intensive management tasks associated with managing patient and provider information and let the agency "focus on our main objectives: managing our budget, improving quality and reducing fraud and abuse."

Under the contract, HP will incorporate e-prescribing into the Alabama MMIS and develop a Website for beneficiaries to access their personal health records, check program eligibility and update information.

The firm will automate the process for process for providers to enroll in Medicaid, with the goal to eliminate 50,000 pieces of paper and 1,500 mailings each month.

The deal also calls for the system's standard electronic transaction codes for HIPAA to be upgraded and the system to be checked for changes required to support new ICD-10 diagnosis code set.

HP (formerly Electronic Data Systems) has a 30-year relationship with Alabama Medicaid, which currently services 900,000 state residents.

Alabama's MMIS, which was upgraded HP's InterChange platform in 2008, was certified earlier this year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Part of the contract calls for HP to migrate the system's storage area network and upgrade its application server to HP-UX.