The TriZetto Group is expanding its access to the European market with a new five-year deal with Unisys Nederland NV to market, distribute and maintain its software solutions to health insurers in the Netherlands.
The announcement caps a busy few months for TriZetto, which is being acquired by a London-based private equity firm with plans to go private.
The latest deal, announced Thursday, is the first overseas channel partner contract for the Newport Beach, Calif.-based provider of benefits-based information technology services for healthcare payers and providers.
"Our customers want to better serve providers, members and employers," said Hans F. van der Zweth, a client account executive for Unisys Nederland, an IT services provider to five of the country's nine health insurers. "Health insurers here are taking a strategic, progressive view, wanting not just to adjudicate payments for medical services but to help manage members' health."
TriZetto officials say the company's applications, which are designed to improve the efficiency of claims processing and other core administrative operations, are used by payers providing healthcare coverage for more than half of those insured in the United States. They note that TriZetto has worked with international clients before, but this non-exclusive, revenue-sharing agreement is the first channel partner deal.
"We're delighted to be working with Unisys Nederland," said Chuck Sanders, TriZetto's vice president of strategic alliances. "In addition to its well-established technology expertise, the importance of Unisys' longstanding relationships with health insurers in The Netherlands cannot be overstated."
According to van der Zweth, TriZetto's products will greatly help the Dutch payer market, where many existing systems are more than 20 years old.
According to the agreement, Unisys Nederland will bundle and market TriZetto's enterprise administrative system for claims processing, claims re-pricing, premium billing, membership administration, customer service and other core operation functions, as well as the company's workflow add-on component application to automate manual processes and its set of extensions, drivers, adaptors and other technology that allows for third-party integration. In addition, TriZetto's applications are code-formatted to allow for easy translation from English to Dutch.
TriZetto's latest announcement follows a string of recent business deals. Just in the past two weeks, the company announced a distribution alliance with Dallas-based TelaDoc Medical Services to push its services into the telehealth sector, and signed a five-year deal with Health Alliance Medical Plans, a managed care organization providing coverage for 250,000 people in Illinois and Iowa, to host its QNXTTM core administration system.
In April, Apax Partners, a London-based private equity firm, announced plans to buy TriZetto for $1.4 billion and take it private. The deal, expected to close before the end of the year, is being opposed in a Delaware court by some shareholders who think they can get more money for their shares than the $22-per-share offer from Apax.
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