CenBen USA Chooses MedAvant as Cost Containment Partner for Significant Savings on Health Benefits Claims

MedAvant Healthcare Solutions, a leader in healthcare technology and transaction services, today announced that it has been chosen by CenBen USA, a recognized leader and expert in benefits administration, to reduce medical claims costs via MedAvant's National Preferred Provider Network (NPPN(TM)). Terms of the agreement include MedAvant's Bill Negotiation services and usage of NPPN as their supplemental PPO network. MedAvant provides managed healthcare companies such as CenBen USA with access to 3,650 acute-care hospitals, 65,000 ancillary facilities and more than 450,000 physicians through NPPN. In addition, MedAvant's comprehensive cost containment solutions save payers approximately $300 million per year. In 2005, CenBen USA administered 4.2 million claims, representing more than $1 billion. With MedAvant, CenBen USA is projecting a savings of more than $5 million within one year of implementation.

"As one of the largest benefits administrators in the country, we are committed to providing world-class service to our more than 500,000 covered participants," said Mary Catherine Person, SR Vice President of Account Management & Product Development at CenBen USA. "Partnering with MedAvant will help us do this by providing additional opportunities for cost savings throughout our organization."

"This is an important relationship for us and we are very happy to have been chosen by CenBen USA," said John Lettko, CEO of MedAvant. "We are confident that they will enjoy significant savings through our PPO Network (NPPN) and our Bill Negotiation services."

MedAvant had previously delivered cost containment services for HealthSCOPE, a company acquired by CenBen USA in 2002. MedAvant was chosen to deliver services to CenBen USA in part because of the success of this program, as well as for MedAvant's projected savings, ease of administration, and ability to provide customized EDI repricing processes for each of CenBen USA's benefits administration operations. Implementation is scheduled to begin immediately.