Purepay Receivables Automation Partners With HERAE To Deliver Automated EOB Processing Solution

Purepay Receivables Automation, a Purepay portfolio company, recently announced a strategic alliance with HERAE to provide financial institutions with an innovative solution for the automated processing of Explanation of Benefits (EOB) documents. HERAE (pronounced "Hurray") is one of the nation's largest healthcare payment services providers.

Despite years of talk about healthcare payments "going electronic," only 5 percent of U.S. healthcare remittances are settled electronically in conjunction with the electronic funds transfer (EFT). Each year, the U.S. healthcare industry generates more than 600 million checks and EOBs, representing billions of pieces of paper. One reason for this slow migration to electronic processing has been the lack of industry standards for EOB formats and codes. But government regulations, in the form of mandated HIPAA policies, and rising cost pressures are creating an urgent need for "electronification."

Working in conjunction with Purepay's ItemAge Express remittance platform, Purepay EOB will provide financial institutions with an automated service for receiving electronic remittance directly from insurance companies and communicating seamlessly with banks on the associated payment transaction. The service will also convert EOB forms to electronic data for faster processing and more cost-effective management. Purepay EOB is based on HERAE's HIPAA compliant ASP-based technology implemented throughout the U.S.

"HIPAA is forcing banks and the healthcare industry to intersect like never before to move from paper to electronic payments. The question isn't if anymore. It's how fast and how much will it cost?" said HERAE CEO Jim Ribelin. "HERAE has already produced a framework of more than 400 payers and 2,500 providers – helping Purepay EOB financial institution customers avoid being a HIPAA covered entity, increasing high-margin electronic fee revenues and reducing both capital and time costs to market."

Purepay EOB will provide financial institutions and their healthcare clients with numerous and significant benefits, including improved collections, reduced processing costs, accelerated payment posting and deposit cycles, improved financial reports and streamlined data archive and retrieval. EOB processing also offers banks the ability to increase fee revenue from existing healthcare customers, and to increase market share in the $1.3T medical claims healthcare industry.

"Manual EOB processing is extremely slow and inefficient, typically resulting in long deposit cycles. This painful workflow is a big factor in soaring administrative healthcare costs," said Purepay Receivables Automation President Wally Vogel. "By partnering with HERAE to offer a comprehensive healthcare payments solution, our bank customers can leverage an agile new tool for growing their revenue streams and acquiring new business."

Purepay EOB is scheduled to be available in the third quarter of 2009.

About HERAE, LLC
A privately owned limited liability corporation based in San Diego, California, HERAE is one of the nation's largest healthcare payment services providers and offers Direct Deposit for Healthcare. Through its unique focus on healthcare billing challenges, electronic remittance advice and solutions for the financial industry, HERAE has developed a paperless process that provides the payment channel between healthcare providers, payers and banks. For more information, visit www.herae.com .

About Purepay Receivables Automation
Purepay Receivables Automation, a Purepay portfolio company, is a leading provider of payment processing, distributed capture, receivables management and electronic billing and payment solutions. Its solutions combine industry standard operating systems and advanced imaging, scanning and data recognition technology to help financial institutions, businesses and other entities optimize operations performance and improve customer service. The company's over 360 North American customers process more than 400 million transactions annually, representing over $100B. For more information, visit www.pure-pay.com.

About Purepay Capital
Purepay is a Columbus-based acquirer and operator of payments companies with a primary focus on automation and transaction processing within the financial services industry. Purepay acquires growing companies, extends their existing capabilities, and accelerates organic growth with the intent of operating the companies long-term. The firm targets a broad set of payments and transaction processing capabilities within the financial services industry. For more information, visit www.purepaycapital.com.

SOURCE: Purepay Receivables Automation