HRSA Awards Sparksoft with a Prime Contract to Manage the Customer Service & Program Operations Center (CSPOC) for National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB)

News

Columbia, MD, June 24, 2024 – The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has awarded Sparksoft Corporation with a prime contract to provide Customer Service & Program Operations Center (CSPOC) support for the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) program, which includes general Contact Center and email support to users on all NPDB related issues, questions, or concerns, NPDB program operations support, and outreach. HRSA is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) whose programs provide health care to people who are geographically isolated, economically, or medically vulnerable. HRSA provides leadership and financial support to health care providers in every state and U.S. territory. The Bureau of Health Workforce (BHW), part of the HRSA, trains health care professionals and places them where they are needed most.

The NPDB serves as an alert system for federal and state licensing and certification authorities, hospitals, and other health care entities to use in evaluating the qualifications of health care practitioners they seek to license, hire, or contract with, or to whom they wish to grant clinical privileges. The NPDB discloses to eligible entities requested information on medical malpractice payments, adverse clinical privileges actions, adverse licensure actions, and other adverse actions taken against physicians, dentists, and other health care providers by State licensing authorities, hospitals, health plans, professional societies, and other health care entities. The program was created to reduce health care fraud and abuse by collecting and disclosing to the authorized entities information on health care-related civil judgments and criminal convictions, adverse licensure and certification actions, exclusions from health care programs, and other adjudicated actions taken against health care providers, suppliers, and practitioners.

Under this contract, Sparksoft will provide management and technical expertise to support the NPDB Customer Service and Program Operations Center, which includes several tiers of call center support to NPDB users on operational issues during the business hours stated on the NPDB website via the established omni-channels of communication, as well as Program Operations support such as processing of self-queries, entity and agent registrations, manual matching algorithm review, and reconciliation of fee collection. Sparksoft will document all communications with users in the Salesforce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, resolve user requests, record all the calls through our integrated Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP)-certified Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution, conduct user satisfaction surveys after the call, escalate issues as appropriate, maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), promote self-service while minimizing user burden and paper usage, participate in the software development lifecycle, and remain current with all releases and deployments to provide accurate and timely information to NPDB users when contacted, or through outreach activities. Sparksoft will work in coordination with all NPDB stakeholders including other NPDB contract vendors, BHW internal stakeholders, and the Program Support Center (PSC).

"We are honored and humbled that the government continues to entrust us with support on some of the most mission-critical public health programs that impact our families and communities. It is truly a privilege to be such a trusted partner to our HHS clients, who are some of the most dedicated public servants leading transformational missions.” said Sparksoft’s President Ms. Siva Sivaraman. Sparksoft’s CEO, Mr. Mike Finkel stated that “It is our privilege to continue expanding our proven healthcare solutions and specifically our expertise with healthcare provider integrity, leveraging our subcontracting experience on the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS).”

This award builds on Sparksoft’s certified ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS) and experience with high-volume contact center operations such as the Eligibility Appeals Operations Support (EAOS), which provides Digital Services Support (DSS) for 1000 users processing Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace eligibility adjudication of ~15000 appeals per month filed on Healthcare.gov with the CMS Office of Hearing and Inquiries (OHI); Marketplace Service Desk (MSD), which provides assistance to CMS Application Development Organizations (ADO), issuers, agent brokers, Health Insurance Marketplaces, State agencies, insurance companies, Third-party Administrators (TPA), and other healthcare stakeholders with the implementation and operational issues of the ACA; and Independent Quality Assurance (IQA), which monitors Customer Service Representatives (CSR) at 1-800-MEDICARE Contact Center Operations (CCO). To learn more about Sparksoft’s Contact Center Operations capabilities and how we can help support your needs based on proven tools, processes, and people, please visit https://sparksoftcorp.com/contact-center-operations.

This award also expands Sparksoft’s footprint across HHS and specifically within HRSA with another recent award for a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) to perform Independent Testing, Verification, and Validation (ITV&V) services, which includes cloud readiness and enhancements, test automation framework and platform enhancements, predictive defect analytics and visual testing using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML), Section 508 compliance verification, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and data generation testing for the following list of the larger HRSA IT systems:

Electronic Handbooks (EHBs)
Provider Relief Fund (PRF) IT Systems
Bureau of Health Workforce (BHW) Management Information System Solution (BMISS)
National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB)
Data Warehouse (DWH)

About Sparksoft Corporation

Sparksoft is a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Services and Development Maturity Level 3, ISO 9001:2015, ISO 20000-1:2018, ISO 27001:2013, and Federal Wide Assurance for the Protection of Human Subjects 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), Sparksoft is a highly mature and capable partner trusted by the government and industry. We bring to bear the essential institutional knowledge, contract vehicles, certifications, experienced personnel, and process maturity to deliver the requirements in compliance with Federal regulations, industry best practices, and agency governance needs.

Through our focused mission “to ignite innovation, inspire transformation, and implement digital solutions for a healthier nation” we specialize in DevOps Delivery, Data Science, Contact Center Operations, Life Sciences, and Test Automation. Since 2004, our exceptionally skilled people, proven leadership, and optimized processes all work together to relentlessly push for more efficient solutions for our HHS, Military Health, and Life Sciences clients. We have developed a support structure of Innovation Centers designed to collect our enterprise-wide lessons learned and identify project-specific opportunities for improvement. SparkLabs, where our Research & Development teams explore ideas and turn them into real-world solutions is an important impetus in our drive for innovation. We continually pull from our experience and combine this with forward-thinking technology from our certified partners like Red Hat, Microsoft, AWS, Okta, Google, Databricks, and ServiceNow to conceptualize novel and effective solutions such as our SparkLoader® RPA Data Pipeline, SparkGrid® Snowflake GUI, MockSpider® Virtual Sandbox, ScriptHive® for TDD/BDD automation, SparkMarker® Website Accessibility Platform, 508bee® Accessibility Validation, and many more.

Sparksoft’s website is updated regularly with news of product launches, contract awards, certification and vehicle changes, key hires, and corporate milestones. Visitors are encouraged to explore the website and also connect with us on Social Media