By Jason Roberson
The Dallas Morning News
December 6, 2007
(Health Management Systems, a New York-based company) that works to recover health insurance benefits in child support cases and cut states’ medical bills has opened a branch in Irving.
HMS already does business in Texas from its offices in other states, operating like a medical debt collector for the government.
If a person who applies for Medicaid is already covered under a private insurance policy, HMS will work to collect money from the insurance company.
In child-support cases, HMS uses its databases to see if a child is covered under a noncustodial parent’s employer-provided insurance.
Since the late 1990s, HMS has helped the Texas attorney general’s office collect nearly $80 million in medical child support and has recovered more than $200 million from private insurers for the Texas Medicaid and Health Partnership, according to the company.
HMS serves Medicaid programs in 40 states.
In 2006, the company recovered more than $1 billion for its clients, and provided data that helped them save billions more, according to HMS.
“We are proud to have a new Texas location from which to help our government clients manage and save money,” said HMS president Bill Lucia.
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Yes, but how much medical care do they finance? None? You mean that this is yet one more innovative administrative service that the industry sells us because of our insistence on perpetuating our inefficient, inequitable, fragmented system of financing care?
What we do not need is more administrators that find innovative ways to move health dollars around while taking their percentage of every dollar they touch. HMS wouldn’t even exist if we had a single payer national health program.