HERAE Offers Direct Deposit for Healthcare in Texas; Medical practices in Lone Star State quick to adopt HERAE's HIPAA-compliant electronic processing of health insurance payments to save time and money.

SAN DIEGO & DALLAS -- HERAE, LLC, a provider of electronic payment processing providing Direct Deposit for Healthcare(TM), today announced that it is now serving Texas-based healthcare practices. Numerous medical groups and value added resellers (VARs) to the healthcare industry in the state have been implementing HERAE to improve collections, reduce the chance for fraud, and speed up billing-to-deposit time.

HERAE (pronounced "hurray") provides a HIPAA-compliant, patent-pending payment system that processes HIPAA 835 transactions and facilitates processing explanation of benefits (EOBs) and money transactions from health insurers (payers) to healthcare providers' bank accounts electronically. HERAE is electronically connected to every major health plan payer in Texas.

"HERAE's electronic system has been an incredible tool for our clients," said Janine McMurtrey, senior partner at MEDCOM, a Texas-based consultant and VAR serving the medical industry. "HERAE significantly decreases the time it takes to process EOBs. The software is accurate, secure, and processes payments in about half the time of manual processes or scanning solutions."

HERAE's paperless process has already been implemented by medical practices and VARs throughout California looking for a way to accelerate the process of healthcare claim payments between its providers and their payers. VARs and medical groups using HERAE report that the process easily integrates into their existing practice management applications, completely eliminates paper envelopes, checks and explanation of benefit (EOB) forms, and most important, produces a measurable savings in dollars and staff hours.

HERAE's offerings are all thin client, ASP-based, requiring its users to have nothing more than a browser. For cash posting activities, HERAE's browser tiling software, ViewPoint, is installed on the local PC. When the transactions are completed, the data is conveniently stored in a database called the Electronic File Cabinet(TM).

"We've been so pleased by the reception from medical practices, VARs and payers. Our rapid growth is a direct result of knowing the billing challenges of medical providers, as well as HERAE's ability to quickly connect to insurance payers electronically," said HERAE Executive Vice President, Jim Ribelin. "We're also proud of the rate at which practice management software providers and VARs have been recommending HERAE to their customers. From the beginning, we've been acutely aware that an electronic billing process must work seamlessly with a multitude of different practice management applications - and HERAE does just that. Our approach is paying off and we're looking forward to continued rapid growth in 2006."

Payment processing is typically one of the most time-consuming and expensive activities for provider offices today. Physician offices in the U.S. are spending close to $5.5 billion a year to manually process claim payments. Time tests conducted by HERAE show that its complete electronic process can reduce billing-to-deposit time for providers and their billing services by as much as two-thirds.

About HERAE, LLC

A privately owned limited liability corporation based in San Diego, California, HERAE provides Direct Deposit for Healthcare(TM). Through its unique focus on healthcare provider billing challenges and electronic remittance advice, HERAE has developed a paperless process with standardized explanation of benefits (EOB) forms, detailed reporting and process workflow enhancement capabilities that improve collections, reduce costs by up to two-thirds, and complete the payment to deposit cycle in 24-48 hours. On the Net: www.herae.com or call 888-41-HERAE (888-414-3723).