Rocky Mountain Health Plans Partners with ikaSystems to Deploy Next-Generation Portal Platform

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers/Technology Editors

SOUTHBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 8, 2008--As part of an initiative to enhance the services available to its constituents in the Colorado health insurance market, Rocky Mountain Health Plans (RMHP) has selected ikaSystems, a premier provider of enterprise-level Web-based technologies for the payer market, as its partner in deploying a comprehensive portal strategy for commercial and Medicare business lines. The ikaPortals collaborative portal platform will significantly broaden the online capabilities of RMHP’s brokers, employers and members, decreasing administrative costs, increasing broker and employer satisfaction, and improving membership retention.

During its evaluation, RMHP was impressed with the results that other health plans have achieved using ikaPortals, such as completely automating their individual business processes for clean applications, enabling brokers to increase their quoting activity by 40 percent, and reducing their small-group selling process from nine touches and eight days to two touches and two days. “These results, end-to-end functionality, impeccable references, competitive pricing and a track record of delivering swift time to value all made this a clear decision,” said John Hopkins, president and chief executive officer of RMHP.

ikaPortals will allow RMHP, a provider of innovative commercial, Medicare and Medicaid plans to nearly 180,000 members, to decrease administrative costs by moving various transactions to a centralized source, reducing the time required to roll out new products and services, and dramatically shortening sales cycles. ikaPortals will provide the flexibility for RMHP to extend an array of functionality to external constituents. For example, brokers can quote online and have visibility into the status of individual and group applications; small group renewals can be sent online; employer groups and members can enroll and pay bills online; employer groups can maintain group rosters online; and health plans can verify Medicare eligibility in real time through ikaSystems’ partnership with Government Works, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contractor hosting the Medicare Beneficiary Data (MBD) extract file from CMS’ MARx database.

“The payer industry tends to focus on reducing the expenses related to claims processing, which constitutes only about 20 percent of health plan expenses,” explained Ravi Ika, president of ikaSystems. “ikaSystems is gaining significant market traction because our technology eases the transition to the newer, more efficient paradigm that addresses the remaining 80 percent by automating and integrating processes, moving transactions to the Web, pushing functionality to the source and using portals as the health plan’s system of record, rather than legacy claims systems. Our clients are clearly seeing that this unique combination dramatically increases their market agility while allowing them to confidently and modularly update their technology infrastructures.”

CNIC Health Solutions, a Denver-based third-party administrator (TPA) for Rocky Mountain Health Plans, will also use ikaPortals for full sales force automation.

About Rocky Mountain Health Plans

Rocky Mountain Health Plans is a Colorado-based, not-for-profit organization that provides medical benefit plans and services to more than 177,000 enrollees. Founded in 1974, Rocky Mountain offers a wide range of options including PPO, HMO, and Health Savings Account-eligible plans. Medical plans can be fully-insured, fully-insured with cost sharing options, or self-funded. Rocky Mountain is the first Western Slope employer to receive the Well Workplace award from the Wellness Councils of America and has a thirty-year history of serving individuals and families, Medicare and Medicaid-eligible persons, and children who receive care under the Child Health Plan Plus program. For more information, contact Rocky Mountain Health Plans at 800-843-0719 or visit www.rmhp.org.

About CNIC Health Solutions

CNIC Health Solutions, based in Denver, is Colorado’s largest independent third party administrator and provides self-funded PPO products to more than 180 employers and 67,000 enrollees. When you choose CNIC Health Solutions, a member of the Rocky Mountain Health Plans family of companies, you tap into the organization’s experience, market longevity, financial strength, and stability. The result is group health benefit administration with flexible data and reporting capabilities and exceptional customer service. For more information, contact CNIC Health Solutions at 877-321-4412 or visit www.cnichs.com.

About ikaSystems Corp.

ikaSystemsis healthcare payers’ premier provider of Web-based ERP technology for process automation and intelligence management. ikaEnterprise, the company’s flagship product, automates all key processes in the payer business cycle, supporting commercial, Medicare and Medicaid lines of business. The system consists of five stand-alone, self-service Web portals for sales/broker, administrative, employer, member and provider use, each of which are tightly integrated with business intelligence and transactional systems for core claims adjudication, care management and proactive quality measurement and reporting. Using our agile, modular technology, organizations can move quickly to lower administrative and medical care expenses through greater automation and highly intelligent decision-making. To learn more, please visit www.ikasystems.com.