What Accenture gets wrong in Healthcare
Accenture has deep relationships with the major payer platforms — Facets, TriZetto, QNXT. Deep relationships mean they know how to scope a multi-year implementation and keep it running. It does not mean they deliver working systems on time or on budget.
Payer technology is fundamentally a compliance problem. CMS requirements, state Medicaid managed care contracts, ACA regulations, provider network adequacy rules — every system a payer deploys touches multiple regulatory frameworks simultaneously. Accenture's compliance approach is to hire a separate compliance consulting workstream that produces reports, not systems.
The result is predictable: the core system ships without the compliance controls embedded, the compliance workstream identifies gaps at UAT, and the project enters a remediation cycle that adds months and cost. The payer ends up with a working system and a separate compliance remediation contract.
What we deploy instead
We build payer platforms with CMS interoperability rules and state Medicaid requirements embedded from the first API design. Our teams understand the difference between a Prior Authorization workflow that complies with the No Surprises Act and one that merely documents it. That distinction is the difference between passing a CMS audit and failing one.
For payer modernization, we deploy teams with specific experience in claims adjudication, provider network management, and member portal architecture. These are not generalist engineers assigned to healthcare. They are engineers who have built payer systems before.
HIPAA and SOC 2 built into the architecture from day one — enforced automatically by ALICE at every commit.
Fixed-price engagements. Production system in 8-20 weeks. No discovery phase. No change orders.
Domain-qualified engineers with healthcare experience. The senior engineer who scopes the engagement is the senior engineer who delivers it.
Full source code and documentation transferred at close. No licensing. No managed services dependency.
The compliance difference
CMS FHIR mandates, state Medicaid API requirements, and ACA reporting obligations require a compliance architecture that is embedded in the system — not bolted on. Accenture's model produces compliance documentation. We produce compliant systems.
What switching from Accenture looks like
Payer technology engagements typically run 16-24 weeks for a core modernization. We work from your existing platform architecture, not a greenfield assumption. Team: 10-16 engineers with payer-specific domain qualification. Fixed price with defined deliverables. No parallel compliance workstream — compliance is the engineering.
Architecture review and scope definition. We review existing deliverables and identify gaps.
Scope locked, team assembled, first sprint underway. Working code from week two.
First production milestone — a working integration or system component, not a document.
Full IP transfer. Source code, documentation, operational runbooks. Your team runs the system.
Failed Vendor Recovery Playbook
Step-by-step framework for recovering from a failed Accenture engagement — from emergency stabilisation through full re-platforming. 4-phase playbook covering stabilise, assess, transition, and normalise.