NEW YORK, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration has renewed a contract with Health Management Systems, Inc., calling for HMS to provide revenue recovery services over the next three years for Florida Medicaid, the nation's fourth-largest Medicaid program.
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Under the contract renewal, HMS will apply its proprietary technology and databases to recover expenditures from insurers and other parties that are liable for care of Florida's 2.1 million Medicaid beneficiaries. HMS also will provide overpayment recovery services, designed to identify other Medicaid expenditures that have been made inappropriately.
HMS has served AHCA since 1993, recovering nearly $300 million in the past 11 years. In 2001, AHCA privatized its third-party revenue recovery operations to HMS, which opened a regional service center in Tallahassee to provide "hands-on" support for the growing Florida operations. Since then, AHCA has extended the scope of the contract to include other types of overpayment recovery services, and HMS has doubled the state's annual revenue recoveries for Medicaid.
Medicaid is the joint federal/state health care initiative for low-income Americans. Medicaid costs are expected to reach $309 billion in 2004, and represent the fastest-rising cost for state government.
HMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of HMS Holdings Corp. , helps government health care programs contain costs by recovering inappropriate expenditures.
AHCA Secretary Alan Levine commented, "Florida Medicaid is pursuing every opportunity to contain costs and thus help ensure the well-being of Floridians. By bringing specialized resources and expertise, Health Management Systems has been a valuable partner in our efforts to avoid inappropriate expenditures and increase payment accuracy. We are pleased that this partnership will continue over the coming years."
HMS President William Lucia said, "Nationwide, Florida is known for its progressive approach to ensuring the viability of public health care. In the same spirit, HMS will apply innovative solutions to help the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration address the fiscal challenges of Medicaid - daunting challenges that all Medicaid programs face today. We are honored by the continued confidence the Agency has shown in HMS, and we will devote our best efforts to fulfilling this trust."
ABOUT HMS
Health Management Systems, Inc. is a national leader in revenue recovery and cost containment for government health care programs. HMS has recovered $2.6 billion from third parties and other funding sources on behalf of its clients, and today has active contracts in 24 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/NYTU172LOGOHealth Management Systems, Inc.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 ofHealth Management Systems, Inc.
Web site: http://www.hmsy.com/
