Benefitfocus Acquires Benefit Informatics, Inc. to Provide Analytics and Plan Modeling

CHARLESTON, S.C., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Benefitfocus today announced the acquisition of Benefit Informatics, Inc., a benefit information management company that provides data analytics technology and services to employers and health plans. This endeavor brings claims data analytics, data warehousing, trending, forecasting and financial analysis to the Benefitfocus Platform.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Benefitfocus, Oklahoma-based Benefit Informatics will continue to operate under the direction of its current management team. This acquisition adds more than 2.7 million consumers to the Benefitfocus Platform.

"This is a great opportunity to combine the infrastructures of two dynamic Software as a Service companies," said Philip Kurtz, President of Benefit Informatics. "Benefit Informatics software complements the Benefitfocus Platform and adds depth to the information provided to employers, health plans and consumers. Customers that fully deploy these technologies in tandem will realize added value from a complete package of benefit enrollment and health plan analysis tools."

Benefit Informatics' technology provides the ability to transform data into actionable information for CFOs, Benefit Administrators, Human Resource Managers and their consultants. Using a data warehouse to store claims, pharma and lab data, the technology provides reports that highlight aggregate trends about health plan usage. The software provides meaningful insights, such as predicting an increase in claims and pharmacy expenses, and auditing plan activity for potential fraud.

Plan modeling and forecasting allow users to calculate the financial impact of claims and estimate future costs based upon historic information. The solution also provides situational models that analyze design modifications and their impacts within minutes. With Benefit Informatics tools, the process of updating the data warehouse with new data is simple and can be updated daily, weekly or on-demand.

The software analyzes healthcare expenses to determine cost drivers and allows users to drill-down from the overall health plan level to the individual member explanation of benefits (EOB) level. This allows employers to proactively monitor plan expenses to take action in controlling costs. Employers audit plan activity and receive alerts for high claimants, trigger diagnoses and improperly coded or paid claims. The software also allows individual employees and plan members to access and monitor their healthcare expenses. Members can review both paid and in-process healthcare claims and view the EOB for each.

"Healthcare cost transparency is increasingly important in today's environment. Benefit Informatics' technology provides industry-leading tools to analyze, plan and manage healthcare costs," said Shawn Jenkins, President and CEO of Benefitfocus. "Their comprehensive analytics offering adds to the scope of the Benefitfocus Platform and extends the value we deliver to employers, health plans and consumers. This is a revolutionary event in healthcare as we introduce the first comprehensive set of eligibility, claims, pharma and lab data all in one platform. This opens up a whole new world of capability, creativity and analysis."

Benefitfocus accumulates significant amounts of eligibility and plan selection data that can be leveraged to guide customers' decision-making processes. This acquisition brings together multiple elements of data that when combined create an entirely new capability for consumers, employers and insurance carriers. Combining such a rich set of eligibility data with deep and broad claims, pharma and lab data truly opens up a new horizon in healthcare. Layered on top of this expanding new data set is the patented semantic search and machine learning technology recently acquired by Benefitfocus.

Through a Software as a Service model, Benefitfocus customers can quickly take advantage of these new data analytics, reporting and modeling capabilities. Benefitfocus' SaaS delivery provides customers with updates through the Internet without additional installation or licensing fees. Customers can take advantage of standard reports, use ad-hoc reporting tools to create custom reports, build their own queries and compare their data to industry standards.

About Benefit Informatics Benefit Informatics Inc. enables the efficient planning, management and analysis of employee benefit plans through the delivery of online proprietary applications and services to employers, insurance companies, third party administrators and brokers. Benefit Informatics currently serves more than 50 payer organizations and more than 5,500 businesses and health plans. For additional information, call 888-802-INFO (4636) or visit www.benefitinformatics.com

About Benefitfocus

Benefitfocus is the largest healthcare and voluntary benefits software provider in the U.S. with 11,100,202 consumers, 327,412 employers, 59,024 brokers and 2,932 carrier representatives live on the Benefitfocus Platform™. Benefitfocus offers a single Web-based platform for benefit shopping, enrollment, management and industry-standard data exchange. Benefitfocus – All Your Benefits. One Place. www.benefitfocus.com

SOURCE Benefitfocus