Care Solutions Becomes First Company to Automate Entire Bill Review Process for Beech Street PPO Network.

Business Editors

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 10, 2000

Care Solutions, a leading provider of bill review services for workers' compensation medical claims, has become the first company to automate both the physician and hospital components of workers' compensation bill review for Beech Street Corp., a national Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) network.

This technology breakthrough will assure more accurate bill reviews and will reduce the administrative costs to workers' compensation insurance payers. It will also significantly improve the timeliness of payment for both physicians and hospitals, thus reducing the burden of additional billings.

Beech Street's merger with a Newport Beach-based PPO in 1999 created one of the largest workers' compensation PPO networks in the nation. This substantially increased the number of providers in the PPO, each of whom had unique compensation agreements for services rendered.

Moreover, the merger also required a technology shift onto a single platform since the two networks were previously operated on separate computer platforms.

Care Solutions reviews workers' compensation bills and adjusts them according to two primary components: 1) Physician and hospital fee schedules dictated by various state guidelines for workers' compensation medical care; and 2) Physician and hospital fee discounts contained in specific PPO compensation agreements.

Although a few bill review companies have integrated the physician component within their systems, the hospital component of the Beech Street PPO contract discount has been manually processed in the months since the merger. With the completion of Care Solutions' nine-month research and development program, the entire system can now be automated.

"Care Solutions has continued to demonstrate their commitment to helping clients obtain the maximum PPO savings with the greatest level of bill review automation," said Rick Markus, regional vice president of Beech Street. "They are the first bill review company to fully integrate both the hospital and physician components of our PPO network into their bill review software."

"We've made a large investment of time and money in this major programming initiative so that we can deliver value-added service to our clients," said Scott Green, president of Care Solutions. "This breakthrough will reduce costs to payers, reduce paperwork for providers and will lead to a more efficient bill review process for everyone involved in the system."

Founded in 1998, Care Solutions provides traditional mail-in bill review services, while its sister company, StrataCare provides Internet-enabled Windows-based bill review software licensing to the workers' compensation payer community.

The company has quickly become one of the most respected companies in the workers' compensation bill review industry, servicing clients such as Republic Indemnity Insurance, Berkshire Hathaway Insurance and Southern California Gas Co.

From its headquarters and data center in Newport Beach, Care Solutions processes in excess of 40,000 workers' compensation medical bills per month. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.caresolutions.net or call 800/277-6512.