Karen Epps

Karen Epps serves as a key procurement professional within the Office of Acquisition and Grants Management at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where she supports the strategic acquisition of professional and technical services critical to modernizing Medicare and Medicaid operations. Her work centers on securing consulting, digital transformation, and data analytics solutions that enhance program efficiency, beneficiary experience, and cybersecurity posture. Epps manages a portfolio of non-construction contracts under NAICS 524114, focusing on direct health and medical insurance carrier support services, including systems integration, claims processing optimization, and regulatory compliance automation. She operates within a framework designed to ensure acquisition integrity, market competitiveness, and alignment with CMS’s mission to deliver secure, scalable, and patient-centered health infrastructure. Epps maintains a primary working relationship with Rocket Media Group, LLC, a vendor consistently engaged to deliver specialized technical and operational support services. Her contracting patterns reflect a preference for established, experienced contractors capable of delivering complex, mission-critical solutions under tight regulatory constraints. While she engages with a limited number of vendors, her partnerships are characterized by sustained performance, repeat task orders, and deep alignment with CMS’s technical requirements in health data systems and digital service delivery. Epps’s procurement activity is exclusively non-set-aside, with 100% of awards issued under full and open competition. This reflects a deliberate strategy to prioritize technical capability and operational readiness over socioeconomic preferences, ensuring access to the highest-caliber service providers in the health insurance technology domain. Her primary industry focus is NAICS 524114, which encompasses direct health and medical insurance carriers. She procures services related to claims adjudication platforms, provider network management systems, beneficiary enrollment tools, and data interoperability solutions—all essential to sustaining and modernizing federal health insurance programs. Her expertise lies in acquiring mission-critical IT and business process services that directly support CMS’s regulatory and operational infrastructure.