New partnership will offer integrated accountable care solution for physicians and patients

BOSTON (February 14, 2012) – Three of the nation’s leading Blue health plans that work with more than 70,000 physicians and hospitals to deliver care to more than 11 million people announced today they are partnering with health IT provider Lumeris Corp. to acquire NaviNet. NaviNet is the nation’s largest real-time communication network for physicians, hospitals and health insurers. Lumeris and the three Blues – Highmark, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon) and Independence Blue Cross (IBC)- have signed an agreement to acquire NaviNet for an undisclosed price. The transaction is expected to close within 30 days, subject to customary closing conditions.

The partners believe that fully collaborative relationships among physicians, hospitals, insurers and patients are essential to increase the quality of care, lower costs and increase patient and clinician satisfaction in the U.S. health care system. The partnership will build on NaviNet’s best-in-class network for transactions among health care providers and insurers by launching an unprecedented initiative to deliver critical information and applications to drive accountable, value-based health care.

Today, NaviNet speeds and simplifies more than 50 kinds of administrative, financial and clinical transactions among three-quarters of America’s physicians, 3,800 hospitals and dozens of the nation’s largest health insurers, including Highmark, Horizon and IBC. The acquisition will position NaviNet to expand the customers served by its real-time communications network.
Lumeris has created the health care industry’s first accountable care delivery platform. Built in the cloud from its creation, this innovative solution provides enriched clinical data, financial information and expertise to support new payment models that reward improved outcomes, enhanced patient safety and increased physician and patient satisfaction, while lowering overall health care costs.

Through the new partnership, NaviNet will leverage its real-time communication network and Lumeris’ accountable care delivery platform to ease the adoption of new accountable care models throughout the country. All over the nation, health plans, including Highmark, Horizon and IBC, are developing new value-based payment models that reward physicians for highly coordinated, high-quality accountable care. The integration of NaviNet and Lumeris’ capabilities would allow plans to develop next-generation accountable care delivery systems to contain costs and improve quality, while continuing to handle administrative transactions easily and cost-effectively.

“Facilitating better care collaboration has been a huge focus for us, and this acquisition clearly demonstrates that others share our vision and are willing to push it to the forefront. We’re thrilled to be working alongside such industry leaders and look forward to collectively setting the standard for accountable care,” said NaviNet’s president and CEO Bradley J. Waugh.
NaviNet connects a network of 70,000 physicians and hospitals throughout the service areas of Highmark, Horizon and IBC, as well as more than 75 percent of physicians in the U.S. Together, the partners are committed to providing physicians and hospitals with the tools and information they need to jointly manage better clinical outcomes and financial risk. However, the accountable care solutions will be available to all NaviNet customers, including insurers, hospitals, physicians and other care providers.

“This accountable care solution will enable NaviNet’s customers to serve as an information partner with physicians and hospitals, helping them facilitate all the administrative, clinical and financial tasks necessary to deliver more accountable care,” said Mike Long, CEO of Lumeris. “Physicians, their patients and health plans will all benefit from this unprecedented initiative -the largest in the country supporting the accountable care movement that is transforming the U.S. health care system.”

Said IBC’s president and CEO Daniel J. Hilferty: “Independence Blue Cross relentlessly focuses on raising the quality and lowering the cost of care that our members receive. But our nation’s current health care system of fragmented and uncoordinated care results in poor communication, incomplete sharing of information and inefficiency- which undermines accountability.
“By building on NaviNet’s success, this exciting new collaboration can provide physicians and hospitals easy access to the information and tools they need to move into this new era of accountable care, which we are confident will bring greater satisfaction to our customers and their doctors,” said Hilferty.

About Lumeris

Lumeris provides the information technology, guidance and operational services necessary for health plans and hospitals to transform their organizations into high-performing accountable delivery systems. The company’s revolutionary accountable delivery platform integrates data from disparate systems across the continuum of care, provides complete visibility into the clinical and financial performance of the enterprise, and delivers applications and information to key stakeholders and providers at the point of thought. Lumeris was launched five years ago by a team of health care and technology leaders led by John Doerr, a leading venture capitalist who has launched some of the world’s most successful companies, including Google, Amazon and WebMD. To learn more call 1.888.LUMERIS.

About NaviNet

NaviNet, America’s largest real-time health care communications network, securely links leading health plans, industry partners and the government to hundreds of thousands of physicians, clinicians and other health care professionals. More than 75 percent of the nation’s physicians are enrolled in the NaviNet Network, which touches 121 million covered lives. NaviNet’s care collaboration solutions and services for unified patient information management (UPIM) address the full lifecycle of health care data management by providing single-source access to patient-centric administrative, financial and clinical information to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and improve quality of care. For more information, or to sign up for NaviNet, please visit www.NaviNet.net or call 617.715.6000 or 800.805.7569.