The New Hampshire Governor and Executive Council on Nov. 10 approved a sole-source amendment that adds $11,421,871 to the state's contract with Deloitte Consulting LLP for its New HEIGHTS benefits system, raising the contract's price limit from $102,169,141.12 to $113,591,012.12.
The amendment was item 21 on the council's agenda. The council's quick-results sheet lists items 1 through 12, 14 through 52 and 54 through 100 as approved. The contract's completion date stays Sept. 30, 2028. The agenda says the money is 91.20 percent federal funds, 1.37 percent general funds and 7.43 percent capital funds.
According to the agenda, the amendment changes the contract's scope to meet requirements from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under PL 119-21. The listed aims are to reduce long-term care eligibility processing times, strengthen contact center response times and change the New HEIGHTS and NH EASY systems to support dual special needs Medicare and Medicaid plans that the state targets for Jan. 1, 2028.
The Department of Information Technology and the Department of Health and Human Services asked for the amendment in a letter to the council submitted by Denis Goulet, the information technology commissioner, and Lori A. Weaver, the health and human services commissioner. The letter says New HEIGHTS supports access to more than 125 public and health assistance programs, including Medicaid, SNAP and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and serves about 1,100 staff and 300,000 clients a year.
The letter lists these changes under the amendment:
A contact center upgrade that adds voice-response prompts accepting natural spoken input from beneficiaries and streamlines voice-signature workflows.
Moving Medicaid reporting dashboards to a cloud environment to meet the Medicaid requirements under PL 119-21.
A daily data exchange among New HEIGHTS, NH EASY and the state's Medicaid management system to synchronize Medicaid and Medicare managed care enrollments for people eligible for both programs, which the letter ties to a commitment in the state's Rural Health Transformation Plan.
Rules-based automated eligibility decisions, an automated long-term care application and an automated spend-down process.
A self-service long-term care provider portal and unified online and paper applications.
Data changes in the Bureau of Developmental Services to reduce errors and automate claims tracking.
The department described the contract as sole source because the increase is more than 10 percent of the original contract price, which was competitively bid. The original contract was approved on Nov. 2, 2022, and the agenda lists six earlier amendments, the most recent approved on March 25, 2026.
The letter says that without council approval the Department of Information Technology and the Department of Health and Human Services would be out of compliance with state and federal requirements and would face operational disruptions, more manual processing and potential financial penalties.
