Company Experts Present Case Study at National Workers’ Comp Conference November 9-11

LAS VEGAS & SAN JOSE, Calif.--Wasting medical payments in workers’ compensation is avoidable, according to a panel of experts presenting at the National Workers' Compensation and Disability Conference® & Expo November 9-11 in Las Vegas.

“Our panel will demonstrate how this connectivity can bring huge aggregate savings to the industry”

Using a real life example, risk managers from a Fortune 100 company, will join DataCare Corporation and EK Health Services, Inc. to show how their collaborative pilot program linked two critical components of workers’ compensation claims management, generating a 20 percent decrease in the company’s medical spending.

Leading the presentation, “Using Technology to Control Medical Cost Leakage,” are risk management representatives from the large self-insured employer and Eunhee Kim, Co-founder/CEO of DataCare and Founder/CEO of its sister company EK Health.

Kim will explain the role DataCare and EK Health played in helping the company find and close the gap between Utilization Review and Bill Review, reducing a major cost driver in workers’ compensation.

“Understanding the benefits of merging UR and BR in workers’ compensation claims management is a critical step to helping payers lower the overall cost of the claim,” said Kim.

The team was motivated by a 2008 study from Navigant showing workers’ compensation payers lose major dollars in wasted medical payments.

The Navigant study showed that in California alone more than $1 billion has been spent on treatments not in accordance with evidence-based medicine, prompting the employer to review its own records. With the help of Data Care and EK Health, they conducted their own study of 100 files, analyzing all medical payments associated with the cases.

The collaborative study confirmed that inappropriate payments were being made to medical providers when neither medical treatment authorization had been given nor original approval obtained to perform treatments.

Employing EK Health’s technologically-driven program linking UR and BR supported by DataCare, the team was able to generate substantial savings for the company.

By establishing UR/BR connectivity, if there is no match between the utilization review-authorized CPT code and the bill, the payment request is culled out and analyzed for appropriate adjustment. “Our panel will demonstrate how this connectivity can bring huge aggregate savings to the industry,” said Kim.

The panel’s findings will be presented at a morning session Friday, November 11 of the National Workers' Compensation and Disability Conference^® & Expo. Visit EK Health and DataCare at Exhibit Booth 125.

About DataCare

Headquartered in San Jose, CA, DataCare software supports evidence-based treatment decisions with defensible supporting documentation for workers’ compensation claims. DataCare technology supports the highly specialized workflows for workers’ compensation claims management, case management, utilization review, and bill review systems. Web-based DataCare solutions enable reviewers to be twice as productive as those using legacy paper-based workflows, and offer managers much better visibility into status, quality, and workload issues.

About EK Health

Headquartered in San Jose, CA, EK Health Services, a sister company of DataCare, is one of the nation’s leading medical and disability management services companies, providing workers’ compensation case management, utilization and peer review services to insurance companies, employers, for-profits and public entities across the country.

SAN JOSE and SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Nov. 2, 2011 -- /PRNewswire/ -- Like most technology firms, DataCare Corporation (http://www.datacare.com) is always looking for talented and well-educated technical professionals. According to Dr. Paulo Franca, President and Chief Technology Officer of DataCare Corporation, “DataCare has been very pleased to hire graduates of the University of California in general and of the University of California, Santa Cruz in particular.” But Dr. Franca adds, “As a developer of web-based products, DataCare has need of young professionals proficient in Internet technology. But we noticed that UCSC had not been able to directly address this field in regular classes because of a lack of funding.”

So DataCare decided to help with a $10,000 donation to sponsor a class during the Fall quarter of 2011. As Arthur Ramirez, Dean of the Computer Science Department at the UCSC Jack Baskin School of Engineering notes, their department “is helping to build the intellectual capital of US Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley communities.” UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal adds, “DataCare Corporation’s contribution will enable the department to accomplish vital research.”

UCSC Professor Jim Whitehead explains why that’s so important. “We feel it's critical for our students to learn about making web applications, since it's a core technology for many innovative companies like DataCare.”

Whitehead further notes that students seem to recognize the importance of this technology for the future of the industry and their careers. “The Hypermedia and the Web class has an enrollment of 62 students, which is remarkable for a few reasons. First, the class wasn't even available for registration until mid-August, several months after fall registration opened. Second, the class is at 8am, never a popular time for students. Yet, after just three weeks, the class filled its original 50 seats. We then opened up another 10 slots, which filled within days. Two more students managed to convince the instructor to let them in. Unlike many of these early classes, this one has not lost enrollment. I think this speaks to the thirst students have for this knowledge, and recognition of its importance for their careers.”

Students learn about the construction of web sites where readers are interacting with a sophisticated program that is running inside the web server, pulling data from a database. This is the basis of software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model DataCare uses.

Teaching the class, Professor Luca de Alfaro has just returned from a two-year leave at Google, where he worked on the ability for people to contribute business information to Google Maps. Assistant Adjunct Professor Reiner Kraft is currently a senior architect at Yahoo, where he also leads the development of very-large-scale web applications. It's a really strong team, which is bringing leading-edge industrial web engineering techniques into the classroom.

Professor Whitehead adds, “The DataCare donation has made it possible to bring Reiner Kraft into the classroom, thereby bringing his world-class knowledge to students. In a very real and concrete way, the DataCare donation is allowing UC Santa Cruz to offer a world-class education to its students.”

As Dr. Franca notes, this leading-edge education is also helping to train the professionals who will help build the future of web engineering.

We look forward to seeing you at the National Workers’ Compensation and Disability Conference & Expo this year in Las Vegas. Join us for two special events:

Conference session: “Using Technology to Control Medical Cost Leakage”

Friday, November 11, 2011, from 8:45 to 10:00 am.

William Zachry, VP Risk Management, Safeway Inc.
Anita Weir, Director, Medical and Disability Management, Safeway Inc.
Eunhee Kim, CEO of and co-founder of DataCare; CEO EK Health

Workers’ comp payers are losing major dollars in wasted medical payments. A study done by our speakers found that, in California alone, more than $1 billion has been spent on treatments not in accordance with evidence-based medicine. By connecting utilization review and bill review systems, the speakers generated a 20 percent decrease in medical spending at one company. They’ll show you the pilot program they developed, present previously unidentified areas of medical cost leakage and give you strategies to implement the program at your organization.  For advance signup, go to http://www.wcconference.com/

DataCare and EK Health Cocktail Reception

Meet the speakers! Please join us for a pleasant evening of food, drink, and socializing with your fellow workers’ compensation and disability professionals.

The cocktail reception will be at Las Vegas Hilton in the DataCare and EK Health suite on Wednesday, November 9, 2011 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm. We look forward to seeing you at the conference. Stop by our booth #125 for your ticket.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 19, 2011 -- After a thorough evaluation, Mitchell Workers' Compensation Solutions has selected DataCare’s Utilization Review (UR) and Case Management Software for its managed care operations.

Mitchell Workers' Compensation Solutions, a division of Mitchell International, is a leading provider of workers' compensation cost-containment technologies and services. Insurance payers, self insured companies, third-party administrators, and managed care organizations rely on Mitchell’s medical bill review platform, the SmartAdvisor™ Software Suite, to improve their medical cost savings results.

According to Nina Smith-Garmon, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mitchell Workers’ Compensation Solutions Division, “Our investment in the DataCare platform is part of our ongoing commitment to utilize advanced technology to help clients manage their medical expenses.”

"We are delighted to be selected as Mitchell's preferred medical case management and utilization review software," stated Paulo Franca, President and CTO of DataCare. "Our solutions will help Mitchell’s case managers increase operational efficiencies and cost-containment capabilities.”

DataCare software promotes cost-effective care and quick return to work by the injured worker. It can also streamline and simplify reporting and billing activities and save as much as 20% of nurses’ time through:

• Role-based dashboards
• Real-time reports
• Access to full medical history
• Integrated evidence-based guidelines

Jackie Payne, Senior Director, Managed Care Operations, says, "We are proud to offer our customers best-in-class solutions. The DataCare UR and case management platform will improve the effectiveness of our managed care team and enable clients to seamlessly integrate with the SmartAdvisor bill review platform.”

“Because the DataCare solutions are delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, they will easily integrate into the Mitchell’s bill review application and with the claims management systems used by Mitchell’s clients,” said Mike Allen, Director of Business Development at DataCare.

About DataCare Corporation

Headquartered in San Jose, California, DataCare software supports evidence-based treatment decisions with defensible supporting documentation for workers’ compensation claims. DataCare supports the highly specialized workflows for workers’ compensation claims management, case management, utilization review, and bill review systems. Web-based DataCare solutions enable reviewers to be twice as productive as those using legacy paper-based workflows, and offer managers much better visibility into status, quality, and workload issues.

About Mitchell Workers’ Compensation Solutions Division

Mitchell Workers' Compensation Solutions (WCS), a division of Mitchell International, is a leading provider of workers' compensation cost containment technologies and services. Insurance payers and other clients rely on Mitchell WCS's best-of-breed medical bill review platform, the SmartAdvisor Software Suite, to improve their medical cost savings results. For more information, visit www.mitchell.com/workerscomp.

About Mitchell International, Inc.

Mitchell International, Inc. empowers clients to achieve measurably better outcomes. Providing unparalleled breadth of technology, connectivity and information solutions to the Property & Casualty claims and Collision Repair industries, Mitchell is uniquely able to simplify and accelerate the claims management and collision repair processes. As a leading provider of Property & Casualty claims technology solutions, Mitchell processes over 50 million transactions annually for over 300 insurance companies/claims payers and over 30,000 collision repair facilities throughout North America. Founded in 1946, Mitchell is headquartered in San Diego, California, and has 1,700 employees. The company is privately owned primarily by the Aurora Capital Group, a Los Angeles-based investment group. For more information about Mitchell, visit www.mitchell.com.