Evolution Health Press Release(see fact sheet, placement) Contact: Donna Porritt NEW ELECTRONIC PAYMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR HEALTH CARE LAUNCHED BY EVOLUTION HEALTHViewed As First Step in Evolutionary Movement to Consumer-Directed Benefits AVON, Conn. February 11, 2002: Evolution Health, LLC, today announced the national launch of its new electronic payment technology product called the Benny™ Card, a special purpose stored-value MasterCard® card being used initially to simplify and broaden the use of health care flexible spending accounts (FSAs). These accounts permit employees to use their own payroll funds on a pre-tax basis to pay for out-of-pocket health care costs. The Benny Card is being marketed through the company's Evolution Benefits division and can be used with any health care provider that accepts MasterCard. Robert E. Patricelli, who serves as its chairman and chief executive officer, founded Evolution Health in 2000. Patricelli previously founded Value Health, Inc., a specialty managed care company that went on to become a New York Stock Exchange company with over $2 billion in annual revenues. Explaining Evolution Health's mission, Patricelli said, "Employers are again struggling to find ways to deal with double digit increases in benefit costs and are having to pass part of those increases on to their employees. Helping employees meet these added burdens by using pre-tax dollars makes sense for everyone involved." According to a 2001 study of employee benefits managers by consulting firm Watson Wyatt, over 70 percent of employers expect to shift additional costs to employees through increased co-pays or benefit reductions in 2002. Patricelli pointed out that, "Under current FSA plans, employees have to pay up front for their uncovered expenses, save all their receipts, then remember to send them in to get reimbursed by check from their own FSA funds. This is administratively clumsy and expensive, and makes people wait to get their own money back." "The Benny Card changes all that," according to Andrew Dahl, Evolution Benefits president, "because all it takes is a card swipe at the pharmacy or provider office and the co-pay or other qualified expense is automatically deducted from the FSA account in real time. We've used modern, debit card-type technology to make FSA administration virtually all electronic. And employees can access the BennyCard.com web site to view their transaction history and monitor their balance anytime, day or night." "The employees of Evolution's customers will find that the prepaid card's security and portability will make it much easier to manage their health care out-of-pocket costs, " said Bill Mathis, senior vice president, North America Member Relations, MasterCard International. "The growing adoption of prepaid MasterCard cards in the insurance industry will broaden the use of health care FSAs, a growing trend in the health care sector." While the Benny Card's first application will be to FSAs, Evolution Health sees its card technology as key to the development of new forms of consumer-directed employee benefits. "These new consumer based programs should be coupled with modern payment technology that reduces costs of administration compared to legacy claims systems," Patricelli said. "In fact," he added, "we are already working with several national health plan companies on the potential use of Benny to help power their new defined contribution benefit designs." One of Evolution Health's initial launch customers is Northeast Utilities (NU), a Fortune 500 company based in Berlin, Conn. Jean LaVecchia, vice president for human resources at NU, reported that, "The Benny Card helped us enhance the value of FSAs with employees by eliminating a key obstacle to FSA participation -- the paperwork. We expect that more of our employees will enroll in FSAs and will increase their contributions in the years ahead because of the Benny Card. We look forward to working with Evolution to explore uses for the Benny Card beyond FSAs." "The immediate paperwork savings and ease of administering an FSA program with the Benny Card are clearly attractive to TPAs (third party administrators), employers and employees," explained Jennings Hart, senior vice president at Acordia National, W. VA, and administrator of NU's FSA. "We believe that use of the Benny Card program can lead to significant increases in employee participation in FSAs," he added. Evolution has teamed up with leading national companies with extensive experience in electronic technology to build and operate the Benny Card program. Among the partners involved in delivering Card services are:
About Evolution HealthEvolution Health has been funded principally by Patricelli and by investment from Women's Health USA, another Patricelli company. Its senior management team is made up of health care and benefits veterans averaging more than 20 years in the industry, many of whom worked with Patricelli in Value Health, Women's Health and other entrepreneurial successes. More product information can be found by visiting www.EvolutionBenefits.com. About MasterCard InternationalMasterCard International has a comprehensive portfolio of well-known, widely accepted payment brands including MasterCard®, Cirrus® and Maestro®. More than 1.7 billion MasterCard, Cirrus and Maestro logos are present on credit, charge and debit cards in circulation today. An association comprised of more than 20,000 member financial institutions, MasterCard serves consumers and businesses, both large and small, in 210 countries and territories. MasterCard is a leader in quality and innovation, offering a wide range of payment solutions in the virtual and traditional worlds. MasterCard's award-winning Priceless® advertising campaign is now seen in 80 countries and in 40 languages, giving the MasterCard brand a truly global reach and scope. With more than 22 million acceptance locations, no card is accepted in more places and by more merchants than the MasterCard card. At Sept. 30, 2001, gross dollar volume exceeded US$704 billion. MasterCard can be reached through its World Wide Web site at www.mastercard.com. ### |