CMS Awards USA InfoTech and Sparksoft Corporation JV, ID8Spark with a 5-Year $37M Prime Contract to Manage the Health Insurance Oversight System (HIOS)

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Columbia, MD, July 16, 2025 – ID8Spark, an innovative digital Government solutions Joint Venture between USA InfoTech and Sparksoft Corporation, has been awarded a 5 year, $37 Million prime contract by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to maintain and advance the Health Insurance Oversight System (HIOS) for the CMS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO). Multiple federal laws govern the private health insurance marketplace, including the Patient Protection and Affordability Act (PPACA or ACA), the Health Insurance Protection and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act (WHCRA), the Newborns’ and Mothers’ Health Protection Act (NMHPA), the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), and the Genetic Information and Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The Marketplace Innovation and Technology Group (MITG) is the primary CCIIO business owner vested in the successful maintenance and enhancement of HIOS as new provisions in legislation unfold.

HIOS is a cloud-based system of systems (SoS) that includes a web portal designed to collect and consolidate data from over 30,000 health insurance carriers and state agencies on behalf of CMS. HIOS operates within a broader ecosystem that includes CMS applications and Exchanges, other federal agencies, state and local governments, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), health insurance issuers, and additional external partners. The HIOS SoS comprises 22 integrated modules along with its web portal. Its core purpose is to function as the federal government’s primary platform for gathering and staging ACA data submitted by external entities. These contributors input their data directly into the HIOS system. In addition to data collection, the HIOS portal serves as the main access point for states and issuers to interact with the Federally-Facilitated Marketplace (FFM). Information submitted to HIOS is transferred in accordance with CCIIO regulations to provide data updates to Healthcare.gov. It also provides administrative capabilities, including user account management and role-based access provisioning.

ID8Spark beat out 10 other bidders to win this highly contested opportunity. Under this contract, ID8Spark will provide HIOS program management, operations and maintenance, change management, Agile development, infrastructure and application monitoring, AWS cloud evolution support, user training, system security, and data privacy to continue championing the complex HIOS mission through expert governance, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) delivery, and innovative capabilities while enabling operational efficiencies that will assist CMS in meeting the following HIOS goals and objectives:

Facilitate knowledge sharing and team integration for project management, discovery, requirements, and design activities between the Exchange contractor and HIOS.

Identify and enumerate insurance companies, the products they are approved to sell, and the plans which they offer to consumers in the Individual, Family and Small Group markets.

Support and provide necessary enhancements for user administration, management, or authentication for the FFM solution.

Develop and implement any additional data collection required to facilitate plan management or reporting for FFM; collect data through HIOS to reduce duplicate data entry.

Serve as the primary system assigning and managing the provisioning of user roles as needed and required.

Develop and support any data dissemination needs, through service-based or file transfer solutions.

“We’re honored to support CMS through the HIOS contract,” said Poornima Balaji, Managing Partner of ID8Spark. “This award reflects the strength of our joint capabilities and a shared commitment to advancing a mission-critical system at a pivotal time for health policy.”

“HIOS plays a vital role in the nation’s healthcare infrastructure,” added Mike Finkel, CEO of Sparksoft. “Together as ID8Spark, we’re ready to deliver innovative, reliable solutions that align with CMS’s evolving goals and the transformative changes ahead.”

The HIOS award reinforces ID8Spark’s footprint supporting vital pillars of the ACA Marketplace for over a dozen collective years on 22 State and CMS programs, including prime contracts like the Federal Data Services Hub (Hub), an AWS microservices web services data interoperability serverless platform the connects over 1,900 data sharing partners; Marketplace Open Modernization and Optimization Technologies (MOMOT) implementation for a CCIIO cloud-agnostic, multi-tenant Red Hat OpenShift container platform and trusted software supply chain; Eligibility Appeals Operations Support-Digital Services Support (EAOS-DSS) for the low-code case management system that adjudicates up to 15000 monthly Marketplace eligibility appeals filed on Healthcare.gov; Marketplace Service Desk (MSD) to aid Application Development Organizations (ADO), issuers, agent brokers, states, plans, and Third-party Administrators with ACA Marketplace operational issues; and Independent Quality Assurance (IQA) to perform quality monitoring of Customer Service Representative interactions in the CMS multichannel Medicare and Marketplace Contact Center Operations (CCO). With a successful portfolio across a dozen active CMS contracts, ID8Spark delivers CMS ecosystem innovations such as providing highly secure access to over 50 integrated systems on Enterprise Portal Services (EPS); Medicare payment systems modernization from legacy mainframe and Cobol to a microservices architecture in the AWS Cloud on Medicare Integrated Systems Testing (MIST); and continuously screening over 4 million Medicare and Medicaid providers and suppliers in all 50 states and 6 territories on the Advanced Provider Screening (APS) program.

About ID8Spark Corporation

ID8Spark is a Small Business Administration (SBA)-Certified 8(a), Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Joint Venture between Sparksoft Corporation and USA InfoTech, who are united in a shared mission to lead the transformation of healthcare IT, merging expertise to create digital solutions that make healthcare more accessible and effective for all. Through our SBA-approved Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP), we are committed to igniting innovation, inspiring change, and developing cutting-edge technologies to foster a healthier nation. Together, we aim to set a new standard in healthcare IT, using our combined strengths to drive forward-thinking, impactful solutions that address the evolving needs of the healthcare landscape.

ID8Spark is a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Services and Development Maturity Level 3, ISO 9001, and ISO 27001 certified consulting organization with a proven record of successfully delivering modern digital health solutions for more than a dozen Federal, State, and Commercial customers. As evidenced by our 20+ active prime contracts and subcontracts, and further supported by our excellent Contractor Performance Assessment Reports (CPARs), ID8Spark is a highly mature and capable specialist in DevOps Delivery, Data Science, Contact Center Operations, Life Sciences, and Test Automation. Please contact BusinessDevelopment@ID8Spark.com to explore synergies for mutual pursuits.

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