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Silverlink and Gorman Health Group Partner to Give Healthcare Enterprises Access to World Class Medicare/Medicaid Communications Services

Posted on: Monday, 27 February 2006, 09:00 CST

Silverlink Communications and Gorman Health Group (GHG) today announced a partnership which pairs Silverlink's experience providing communications services to the healthcare industry with GHG's expertise delivering counsel, products, and consulting services to Medicare and Medicaid's private sector partners. Serving six of the top 10 health plans, Silverlink is healthcare's leading provider of automated consumer outreach. Lehman Brothers recently cited GHG as the leading consulting firm in Medicare Managed Care.

The companies have been working together for nearly a year to deliver automated call solutions to health plans offering Medicare Part D products. "Teaming up with Gorman Health Group adds incredible depth to what we could offer our customers," said Stan Nowak, CEO and president of Silverlink. "Frankly no one in the marketplace is better equipped to help our clients develop Part D communications strategies."

Nowak explained the importance of effective outreach programs. "We're all reading about how confusing it is for seniors to select and enroll in a Part D program. It was clear to us early on that Part D would create significant communications challenges for our customers. It's a complex program being offered to a population with unique communications needs. Effective, proactive communication is key to attracting and serving the 42 million eligible beneficiaries. If new members routinely have to call in to ask where their membership card is, there's a clear gap in customer service. Proactively reaching out with that information is a better approach. We've identified more than 20 similar opportunities for automated proactive communication around Part D. Gorman Health Group has been instrumental in helping us develop content and navigate regulations for those opportunities, and our clients are responding positively. Every one of our clients who is offering a Part D product has used our services to help communicate with beneficiaries."

John Gorman, CEO and president of Gorman Health Group, also identified beneficiary communication as a key success factor for MA-PDs (Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug Plans) and PDPs (Prescription Drug Plans). "Proactive communication with members has never been more important," said Gorman. "Reaching out to eligible Part D beneficiaries throughout the selection and enrollment process will help plans earn and retain more members while avoiding a call center overwhelmed by inbound inquiries and complaints. Furthermore, PDPs have to develop a strategy to retain auto-enrolled beneficiaries. These people are exempt from the enrollment lock-in so PDPs need to develop communications that inspire loyalty, show superior service, and most importantly, improve quality. The programs we're designing with Silverlink can address a number of these strategic concerns with one integrated plan."

Under the terms of the agreement, Silverlink customers will have access to GHG services when they need strategic or tactical advice about communicating with Medicare and Medicaid populations. GHG will work directly with Silverlink to develop Medicare/Medicaid automated calls - guiding call script development and helping to navigate regulatory requirements.

"We're very excited about this partnership," said Silverlink's Nowak."Gorman Health Group will be an extremely valuable resource to our customers, and formalizing this relationship is consistent with our commitment to holistically meet the complex communications needs of healthcare."

About Silverlink

Silverlink is the leader in automated voice solutions for healthcare enterprises. Silverlink's services enable customers to design, deploy and manage HIPAA compliant automated call programs to educate, collect information from and drive behavior of thousands of patients and members at a time. Silverlink drastically reduces the cost of communicating with customers while improving financial results and customer care. For more information on Silverlink, please visit www.silverlink.com.

About Gorman Health Group (GHG)

Widely regarded as the leading consulting, products and services firm in the Medicare marketplace, GHG fields an unparalleled team of senior managed care professionals and veteran healthcare regulators to provide strategic, operational, financial, and clinical services to the industry. GHG has brought dozens of health plans to market in the last few years, and completed a dozen Part D implementations in 2005. Based in Washington, DC, GHG maintains close contacts with Federal policymakers, agencies, and trade associations, and ready access to legislative and regulatory developments. GHG also has offices in Cincinnati, Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Tampa. For more information, visit www.gormanhealthgroup.com.

Source: Business Wire

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