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WNYHealtheNet web application wins Healthcare Achievement Award

BUFFALO, NY –April 26, 2006 – WNYHealtheNet is the recipient of the 2006 Buffalo Niagara 2006 BETA Award in the Healthcare Achievement category. The announcement was made March 23 by InfoTech Niagara.

Each year, the Buffalo/Niagara Emerging Technology Awards (BETA) are presented to companies, organizations, and people who seek to discover, honor, and promote the efforts of those who have served as innovators, creators and advocates of new technologies, new methods of integrating technology and of economic development through technology in Western New York. The awards are sponsored by InfoTech Niagara, a coalition of companies and people involved with information and computing technologies in Western New York.

WNYHealtheNet (pronounced as “Western New York Healthy Net”) earned honors in the Healthcare Achievement category, which recognizes a local healthcare organization that best embodies the vision, most inventive ideas, and the broadest leadership in technological innovation.
“The BETA award signifies that the local technology and medical communities have recognized WNYHealtheNet as an ever-evolving, mainstream organization whose website adds value and administratively simplifies office practices through the imposition of industry standards,” said Tom Unger, Grapevine Consulting, contracted program manager for WNYHealtheNet. “The success has been a result of working with experienced technology partners, including Chicago-based APP Design Inc., and PCI of Buffalo.”

WNYHealtheNet is a database-driven software tool available via the Internet. It is a collaboration by the region’s major hospitals and all health insurance plans, and allows for on-line, real-time administrative transaction processing.

“WNYHealtheNet is an amazing success story,” said APP Design partner Rob Quinn, the company that created the WNYHealtheNet software application, and built the country’s first community health network, Wisconsin Health Information Network (WHIN). “It’s been a privilege to have contributed to WNYHealtheNet, which drives down health care costs, as it saves physicians and providers nearly $20 every time a referral is made, and $1 for every transaction. When considering that the application supports nearly two million transactions every month, the cost savings add up quickly.”

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APP Design solutions save provider organizations $2.4 million over the past year, as featured in Health Management Technology article " Transaction Portal Cuts Costs".

From the article:

One of the members, Buffalo, N.Y.-based Kaleida Health System, is recovering $120,000 a month—$1.44 million annualized—in copays that were previously not collected due to the lack of information about member eligibility and copays, reports Fran Meyer, chief information officer at Kaleida Health System. Also, Catholic Health System in western New York is recovering $82,000 a month—$984,000 annualized—in copays that were previously lost, says Jeffrey Baughan, chief information officer at Catholic Health System.

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Payer organizations also benefit from WNYHealtheNet. HealthNow, a WNYHealtheNet payer participant, realized a significant increase in transactions while reducing the amount of calls and costs associated with its call center volume for inquiries by enabling additional access to online information, according to Gary Kerl, chief information officer of HealthNow and BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York.

The improved efficiency of this new system, and the reduced volume that needed to be handled by the call centers, enabled HealthNow to avoid call center costs of nearly $20,000 a month and eliminated the need for $8,600 a month in dial-up lines. Combined, these efforts reduced annual costs to date by more than $340,000.

About Eliginet/APP Design — APP Design Group builds enterprise class systems delivering information from disparate sources using Internet technologies. APP Design’s Eliginet product is the provider information delivery platform for WNY HealtheNet.

APP Design’s Eliginet product is a secure platform for delivering information from multiple disparate sources to the desktop using Internet technologies. This proven, cost-effective system helps healthcare organizations reduce costs, address security and HIPAA compliance issues, and speed the delivery of information between partners. Eliginet’s focus is on the secure electronic exchange of information necessary to reduce administrative and clinical costs while improving the quality of health care.

Eliginet customer WNY HealtheNet wins award for collaboration

(February 25, 2003) The AstraZeneca-NMHCC Partnership Award winners for 2003 will be honored at the 15th Annual National Managed Health Care Congress, March 10-12 in Washington. The award recognizes organizations that address health care delivery quality, access and efficiency initiatives through collaborative efforts. This year’s winners are Availity LLC, Jacksonville, Fla.; Coastal Carolinas Health Alliance, Wilmington, N.C.; and WNYHealtheNet, Lancaster, N.Y.

WNYHealtheNet is an online health insurance business venture among provider and payer organizations that aims to assist in verifying health plan enrollee eligibility, check claims status and exchange referrals. Member organizations include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York, Catholic Health System, Erie County Medical Center Healthcare Network, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Independent Health, Kaleida Health and Univera Healthcare.

NMHCC and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LLP, Wilmington, Del., are co-sponsors of the award. Winners are chosen by virtue of collaboration among health care provider and payer organizations, employers, pharmacies, pharmacy benefit managers, and vendors. In addition to recognition at the congress, winners will make case study presentations and receive $2,500 grants for the charities of their choice.

About Eliginet/APP Design
– APP Design builds enterprise class systems delivering information from disparate sources using Internet technologies. APP Design’s Eliginet product is the provider information delivery platform for WNY HealtheNet.

APP Design Group’s Eliginet product is a secure platform for delivering information from multiple disparate sources to the provider desktop using Internet technologies. This proven, cost-effective system helps healthcare organizations reduce costs, address security and HIPAA compliance issues, and speed the delivery of information between partners. Eliginet’s focus is on the secure electronic exchange of information necessary to reduce administrative and clinical costs while improving the quality of health care.

APP Design congratulates WNY HealtheNet on the successful rollout of the WNY HealtheNet system based on APP Design’s Eliginet. By leveraging their shared infrastructure, technology, and intellectual capital, they’ve proven that collaboration between healthcare entities can make revolutionary changes in healthcare delivery.

The reward of many months of rigorous testing, involving millions of transactions, has resulted in the most stable and efficient platform in the healthcare community.

WNY HealtheNet:

• Dramatically reduces HIPAA compliance costs for the member organizations.
• Benefits providers by reducing time and resources wasted on administrative overhead, thereby increasing quality of patient care.
• Reduces administrative and clinical cost by implementing best practices throughout the region.

The Medical Group Management Association reports that managing the administrative burden consumes $13,850 per year, per physician. WNY HealtheNet will help reduce these costs by reducing the amount of time spent on administrative tasks.

About Eliginet/APP Design — APP Design builds enterprise class systems delivering information from disparate sources using Internet technologies. APP Design’s Eliginet product is the provider information delivery platform for WNY HealtheNet.

APP Design’s Eliginet product is a secure platform for delivering information from multiple disparate sources to the desktop using Internet technologies. This proven, cost-effective system helps healthcare organizations reduce costs, address security and HIPAA compliance issues, and speed the delivery of information between partners. Eliginet’s focus is on the secure electronic exchange of information necessary to reduce administrative and clinical costs while improving the quality of health care.

(June 6, 2001) – APP Design announced today that Health-eConnex has chosen APP Design’s Eliginet platform and integration services to meet the needs of the payers and providers of GlobalCare in Southern California. Eliginet will support the electronic translation and transmission of eligibility records for GlobalCare’s 200,000 covered lives.

“Eliginet provides an extremely cost effective and time saving solution for us.”, says Ray Pedden, Executive Vice President of Health-eConnex. “Before Eliginet, it took 7 people almost a month to transfer eligibility information between our systems. Now our people can upload their information, and have it translated and back in less than 30 minutes.”

“This application shows the flexibility of the Eliginet platform”, said Dave Warren, Director of Development. “Even though this is not the usual transaction display application, we were able to use the modularity of the Eliginet platform to get Health-eConnex running in less than 30 days.”

About HealtheConnex – HealtheConnex is a connectivity provider with extensive experience in Internet communications and applications, with a focus on medical provider claims issues, managed care operations and payment distribution.

About APP Design – APP Design is dedicated to bringing high quality, HIPAA-ready solutions to the healthcare industry. APP Design’s focus is on the secure electronic exchange of information necessary to reduce administrative and clinical costs while improving the quality of health care.

APP Design’s core product, Eliginet, is a secure platform for delivering information from multiple disparate sources to the desktop using Internet technologies. This proven, cost-effective isolation helps healthcare organizations reduce costs, address security and HIPAA compliance issues, and speed the delivery of information between partners.