Founded as a single health plan in 1984, Centene Corporation (Centene) has established itself as a national leader in the healthcare services field. Today, through a comprehensive portfolio of innovative solutions, we remain deeply committed to delivering results for our stakeholders: state governments, members, providers, uninsured individuals and families, and other healthcare and commercial organizations.

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Andrew Maxedon, IT Architect for Finance systems at Centene to discuss their annual get-current strategy for their PeopleSoft environment.

Key Takeaways

About Centene

Centene is a managed care organization serving multiple markets with primary business in Medicaid and Medicare. The technology side of the team has 6 employees and the functional side has 10 that serve around 26,000 total employees. They have been a PeopleSoft company since 2008 and are currently on Financials 9.2 Image 17 with a few fixes from later Images and PeopleTools 8.55.03.

I recently had the opportunity to meet with Andrew Maxedon, IT Architect for Finance systems at Centene to discuss their annual get-current strategy for their PeopleSoft environment.

What does your company’s selective adoption strategy look like?

We are on an annual get-current strategy both on Tools and App. We also pull out bug fixes and will possibly pull enhancements via PUM throughout the year (depending on impact). We defined the strategy in-house based on what was best balanced for our business needs.

What is your experience to date with PeopleSoft update manager and selective adoption?

We have been using it for two annual release cycles now as well as one-off fixes as needed throughout the year. It has allowed us flexibility in bringing in new functionality as well as bug fixes between our annual releases. It has also improved the upgrade process to the only impact those objects changed and not the traditional upgrade method of starting from delivered, which had several challenges.

How have your technical (system maintenance) business processes changed since implementing selective adoption?

They have stayed the same from an annual release standpoint, except now instead of bundles we get fully current. We can also take small fixes, but we typically won’t pull in very large changes (nor have any typically been required so far).

How have your functional (feature adoption) business processes changed since implementing selective adoption?

We can take advantage of new features annually instead of every three years as we used to do when getting current.

How, if at all, are your technical and functional teams working together within your use of selective adoption?

Our teams always work together. We decide on anything from fixes to features. The technical team evaluates and applies changes while the functional team tests and works with the user community.

What would you tell a customer who’s about to begin the process of selective adoption?

Adopt at minimum an annual get-current plan. It is far simpler than it used to be and can help level load your statement of work each year. PeopleSoft Test Framework is also important to minimize manual efforts in regression testing.

How are you rolling out new features and functionalities to your end users?

We apply the new features annually when we get current (typically May timeframe) and then enable them later in the year depending on functional requirements and business needs/timing.

Are you using fluid? If so, where and how?

Not yet. We still have some details to work out around the navigation changing (breadcrumbs lost, sort order, etc.). The plan is to target later 2017 for Fluid navigation roll-out.

How involved was your company in utilizing the quest community, or any other user group, during the upgrade process?

We had in-house expertise so it wasn’t required but we know we could have if needed.

Do you or your company participate in focus groups for the PeopleSoft products? If so, what benefit does this have?

Yes. It helps us to stay current and allows us to provide feedback to shape the product.

Where do you want to take your company’s solution in the next two to three years?

We may switch to a semi-annual model of twice per year. Due to having a Finance system, Q1 and Q4 are tough due to year-end(s) that are either starting or wrapping up, so twice per year is likely our most frequent to get fully current.