Mo. Chooses HMS to Recover Costs for Medicaid and Mental Healthcare

The state of Missouri has awarded Health Management Systems Inc. a contract to provide third-party liability services on behalf of both the Missouri Medicaid program and the state’s mental health care system. With the contract, HMS becomes the first vendor to provide these services for the Missouri Department of Mental Health – and continues more than five years of working with the state to control health care costs.

HMS, a wholly owned subsidiary of HMS Holdings Corp., helps Medicaid and other government health care programs contain costs by recovering expenditures from liable third-party sources of health insurance. Medicaid, the federal/state health care initiative for low-income individuals and families, will reportedly cost the nation more than $300 billion in 2004, and is the most rapidly growing component of spending by states.

The new Missouri contract calls for HMS to recover costs from third parties that include Medicare and private health insurance plans. The contract also allows HMS, at the state’s request, to pursue other sources of coverage such as workers’ compensation and automobile insurance.

Prior to this contract, the Missouri Department of Mental Health had not worked with a third-party liability services vendor. The DMH serves 140,000 Missouri residents annually through a network of state-operated facilities and private mental health care providers.

The Missouri Medicaid program funds health care for approximately 1 million Missourians. Since winning an initial contract in 1998, HMS has reportedly recovered more than $72 million for the program.