CMS signals interest in Palantir for national provider directory project 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services appears to be quietly considering Palantir to support its yearslong efforts to build a national provider directory for health care providers and patients across the country.

Federal spending records show Palantir to be one of four recipients to receive awards from the Department of Health and Human Services and CMS containing the phrase “national provider directory” and “proof of concept.” The four separate contracts, made public Sept. 30, award $1 to each company and are set to expire Nov. 13. 

Two sources familiar with the efforts told FedScoop these contracts are for a prototype product with CMS. One source confirmed the prototype is for the agency’s national provider directory, an effort the agency has been exploring for years. CMS has suggested the directory could serve as a centralized data hub for health care provider and facility information nationwide. 

The move marks the latest sign of civilian agencies’ growing interest in Palantir, which offers extensive data integration and analytics capabilities. Palantir has long held contracts with the Pentagon, but has expanded in recent years to civilian agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another HHS subagency. 

Its Foundry platform is reportedly being used in data-sharing initiatives at the CDC, along with a similar effort in the United Kingdom. 

The contract, purchased on the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedule, merely states it is for a “national provider directory — proof of concept,” with no other information. 

The other three awards, which were issued directly by HHS and CMS, were given to Gainwell Technologies, Council for Affordable Healthcare Inc. and Availity. The description for the three contracts read: “The purpose of this requirement is to procure professional IT services for proof of concepts for the development of the national provider directory (NPD).” 

No other information about these contracts was publicly available, and HHS did not confirm whether all of the companies will make it past this apparent prototype phase. The four listed companies declined to publicly comment on the matter. 

Nonetheless, the awards mark a major step in CMS’s long pursuit of a provider directory. It comes nearly three years after the subagency first requested public input on the directory, which is formally referred to as the National Directory of Healthcare Providers and Services. 

CMS has long said the health care directory space is fragmented, making it difficult for patients to find updated information about network providers, which also have the burden of reporting information to multiple databases.  

When asked about the Sept. 30 contracts, a spokesperson for HHS told FedScoop the directory project is “the long-term solution to these broader data accuracy issues.”

“That effort, which is currently underway, will create a modern, national, interoperable source of truth for provider information,” the spokesperson said. “CMS is working in close collaboration with the private sector and other stakeholders, and the project will be delivered in multiple phases over the next year.”

The White House and CMS hinted at these efforts at an event in July, during which numerous major technology companies signed a pledge to support the agency’s digital health initiatives. The agency introduced the CMS Interoperability Framework at the same time, which it described as a “call to action for health data networks that want to move faster.” 

CMS similarly posted on X in June that it is “building a national healthcare directory, starting with provider information.” 

“It will be a dynamic, interoperable directory that connects the data CMS has with what the industry knows, so we all work from the same map,” the post added. 

And in September 2024, CMS announced a partnership with the state of Oklahoma and the state’s Insurance Department to pilot a provider directory. 

Palantir has faced backlash overseas for similar efforts. In 2023, the company landed a multimillion contract with Britain’s National Health Service to build a platform to integrate data across the health care system into a central hub. The contract, worth about $415 million at the time, quickly sparked concerns over privacy, and some U.K. hospitals have reportedly rejected using the platform. 

Amid criticism, Palantir Executive Vice President Louis Mosley accused U.K. doctors of choosing “ideology over patient interest,” The Guardian reported.

Brandi Vincent contributed to this article.