NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - September 1, 2009 - The TriZetto Group, Inc. today announced a six-year software and services contract with Lovelace Health Plan to enable the provider-owned plan to more efficiently serve its roughly 200,000 members in New Mexico, optimize business operations and move toward Integrated Healthcare Management (IHM).

Under the agreement, TriZetto will provide business process outsourcing (BPO) services on a TriZetto-hosted and managed Facets® enterprise administration system. Other hosted systems will include TriZetto’s NetworX Suite®, Facets Workflow and a TriZetto module that will streamline service of Lovelace Health Plan’s Medicare population.

Lovelace Health Plan expects to complete its transition to TriZetto’s applications and services by October 2010. IHM is the systematic application of processes, shared information and aligned incentives to optimize the coordination of benefits and care for the healthcare consumer.

“By consolidating systems and vendors and entrusting TriZetto to manage both our software and our processes, Lovelace will have better insight into key data and trends and can increase its attention on areas that differentiate us from our competitors, including our constituent engagement and delivery of high-quality care through an integrated delivery network,” explained Bob Skinner, assistant vice president of information technology at Lovelace Health Plan. “We believe that TriZetto’s unique combination of software and services, focused toward the vision of Integrated Healthcare Management, provides a solid path for Lovelace Health Plan’s continued growth.” 

“We look forward to helping Lovelace Health Plan reach new levels of efficiency and member satisfaction with TriZetto’s proven software and services, which increase payers’ operational and financial flexibility and reduce time-to-market with new products and services for employer customers and members,” said Mike Jenner, executive vice president of TriZetto Services.

The significant BPO investment by Lovelace Health Plan is characteristic of a trend among healthcare payers, according to industry analysts.

“CIOs of U.S. healthcare insurers are more frequently considering BPO as a strategic option, turning it from largely the exception to a more accepted norm,” observed Maureen O’Neil of Gartner Inc. in its February 2009 report, Healthcare Insurance BPO Market Ready to Take Off.

“In 2009, over 60 percent of healthcare payers surveyed by IDC Health Insights reported business process outsourcing initiatives,” noted Janice Young in IDC Health Insights’ March 2009 report, BPO Adoption in the Healthcare Payer Market, 2009 (document no. HI217476). “As the survey results data depicts, BPO healthcare payer growth in many categories was significant, suggesting that many of the increases were planned for 2009 and 2010.”

Lovelace Health Plan will use the full suite of TriZetto BPO services, including claims administration, enrollment administration, billing and financial reconciliation, business rules configuration and mailroom services. The health plan also will leverage TriZetto’s application hosting services to manage TriZetto, custom and third-party applications. As part of the agreement, TriZetto also will perform a wide range of application implementation and optimization services, including configuration, data conversion, custom development, testing and training.

About Lovelace Health System

Based in Albuquerque, N.M., Lovelace Health System is a network of three acute-care hospitals, an accredited rehabilitation hospital, 11 neighborhood Lovelace Pharmacies, SED Medical Laboratories and Lovelace Health Plan, which includes Lovelace Senior Plan, Lovelace Insurance Company and Lovelace Community Health Plan. Lovelace Health Plan has been rated the top commercial and Medicare health plans in New Mexico by the National Committee for Quality Assurance and U.S. News and World Report. Lovelace Health System is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ardent Health Services. Based in Nashville, Ardent owns a network of health systems and hospitals in New Mexico and Oklahoma.

About TriZetto

Founded in 1997, TriZetto is the leading privately held healthcare information technology company to the healthcare payer industry. With its technology touching half of the U.S. insured population, TriZetto is Powering Integrated Healthcare Management™, the systematic application of processes and shared information to optimize the coordination of benefits and care for the healthcare consumer. The company’s offerings include enterprise and component software, hosting, outsourcing services and consulting that help payers implement and optimize their operations and minimize the risk of bringing new products to market that drive competitive differentiation.

CONTACTS:

Loren Finkelstein
The TriZetto Group
303-542-2460
loren.finkelstein@trizetto.com

Melissa Bruno
Schwartz Communications
781-684-0770
trizetto@schwartz-pr.com