Emdeon Inc., a provider of healthcare revenue and payment cycle management solutions, announced a strategic relationship with Noridian Mutual Insurance Co. (NMIC), doing business as Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, and Noridian Administrative Services, LLC (NAS) that's aimed at increasing Emdeon's penetration in the public payer sector.
"This strategic relationship accelerates and broadens Emdeon's business development within the public payer sector by partnering with a well-known, established MAC that has an excellent reputation within CMS," said Gary Stuart, executive vice president of payer services for Emdeon. "Given the current focus on health reform, Emdeon is well positioned to deliver significant savings to the public payer sector, including CMS, through our products and services. Our relationship with Noridian further demonstrates our companies' shared vision to make healthcare more efficient."
A key part of the strategic relationship is a license and reseller agreement granted to Emdeon for Noridian's EXACT software technology. EXACT is designed to align with the Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) initiative and is a healthcare service oriented architecture platform with reusable interfaces to federal systems, as well as a state Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS).
The MITA initiative of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations aims to support the advancement of standardized system interfaces, interoperability and secure data exchange. By integrating Noridian's EXACT technology into its operations, Emdeon intends to provide federal, state and commercial healthcare systems greater access to to the company's products and services.
"Emdeon's extensive payer/provider network and solutions combined with Noridian's technology and healthcare administration experience will provide state and federal government agencies with new tools for dealing with today's healthcare challenges," said Mike Hamerlik, president and CEO for NAS. "Separately and in partnership, our two organizations remain focused on improving health care administration through lower costs, improved quality and technology integration."
In addition to the licence for EXACT, Emdeon will assume operations for the NMIC printing facility in Fargo, N.D. As such, Emdeon said it will be able to accelerate savings in the public payer sector by leveraging the products and efficiencies within Emdeon's Payment Management Solutions for the fulfillment of provider checks, remittance advice and member explanation of benefits, as well as 1099s and identification cards.