NEW YORK, April 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Partnership HealthPlan of California, a non-profit, county-organized health system managing the care of 82,000 (Medi-Cal) Medicaid beneficiaries in the counties of Solano, Napa and Yolo, has selected Health Management Systems, Inc. to provide coordination of benefits services.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030304/NYTU172LOGO )
Under a one-year contract with annual renewals, HMS will identify and recover expenditures that are the responsibility of other parties, such as private insurers and Medicare. Partnership HealthPlan expects the resulting cost recoveries and savings to total millions of dollars over the course of the contract.
HMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of HMS Holdings Corp. , helps Medicaid and other government health care programs contain costs by recovering expenditures from liable third-party sources of health insurance. In the past year, HMS has expanded its services to Medicaid managed care plans, drawing on its experience in 30 states. To date, HMS has recovered a total of more than $2 billion for its clients.
Medicaid, the federal/state health care initiative for low-income individuals and families, will cost the nation more than $300 billion in 2004, and is the most rapidly growing component of spending by states. Medi-Cal is the largest state Medicaid program, with 6.8 million members. Of these, approximately 53 percent are enrolled in managed care plans.
"Given the current state of the California state budget and its effect on Medi-Cal and our program, we are looking at all possible ways to contain costs while continuing to provide high-quality care that is accessible to our 82,000 members," said Partnership HealthPlan Chief Executive Officer Jack Horn. "It doesn't make sense for taxpayers to pay for services provided to a Medi-Cal recipient, when that recipient already has health insurance in addition to Medi-Cal."
HMS President William Lucia commented: "In selecting HMS, Partnership HealthPlan has chosen an innovative solution to control Medicaid costs without compromising services - a solution that more and more managed care plans are discovering. The HMS team is proud to be joining with Partnership in this effort. As Medi-Cal faces unprecedented fiscal pressures, never has the need for our revenue recovery services been greater."
ABOUT HMS
Health Management Systems, Inc. is a national leader in revenue recovery and cost containment for government health care programs. HMS has recovered more than $2 billion from third parties and other funding sources on behalf of its clients, and today has active contracts in more than 20 states. HMS's solutions are non-duplicative and require no up-front funding or additional agency resources. HMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of HMS Holdings Corp. (listed on NASDAQ under the symbol HMSY), is headquartered in New York and operates offices nationwide.
Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030304/NYTU172LOGOHMS Holdings Corp.CONTACT: Investor Relations - Laura Jo Snyder-Cruz, +1-212-857-5986,ir@hmsy.com, or Media - William Hall, +1-212-857-5407, whall@hmsy.com, both ofHMS Holdings Corp.
Web site: http://www.hmsy.com/
