MELBOURNE: Med-tech company MedAdvisor announced a Strategic Alliance Agreement with US-based HMS , a leading provider of payment accuracy and population health management solutions.

HMS, a MedAdvisor shareholder, works with 350 US health insurance companies and more than 40 government bodies which pay medical bills on behalf of patients in the US to better engage patients and to improve medication adherence and overall health outcomes.

HMS’ health engagement solution helps health insurers communicate with millions of US patients every year to help them improve health outcomes. This strategic alliance will facilitate MedAdvisor’s ability to integrate with HMS’ health engagement platform for up to 100 million insured lives.

Specifically, this core integration will enable a deep connection between HMS’ health engagement solution Eliza and MedAdvisor’s health programs platform to enable healthcare organisations to proactively communicate and deliver the right message, to the right person at the right time.

The integration will broaden the scope of HMS’ US-health programs beyond traditional interactive voice response (IVR) outreach to include secure digital functionality -including the use of web-based content, SMS and other rich content. It is expected that this new product will go live in the market in Q2 FY21.

This is expected to enhance the response rates and engagement that HMS can provide to their existing and new clients. HMS’ engagement solution has deployed 865 million unique outreaches since 2016; and its highly scalable and proprietary technology systems can handle more than one million patient outreaches in a single week.

Through this deal, MedAdvisor expects to generate revenue for each of the secure digital messages that are sent on behalf of HMS’ clients. MedAdvisor expects that there is strong market appetite for this service and over time could represent a significant portion of the existing outreach volume. The deal is for 3 years with standard termination and commercial confidentiality provisions. All commercial arrangements will be governed by this agreement and the commercial terms will be separately negotiated under discrete Statements of Work. All material clauses have been disclosed.

Commenting on the news, MedAdvisor CEO Robert Read said: “This deal opens up a new addressable patient population beyond our existing partnerships. It also adds the potential to bring a different sponsor for our health programs, in the US health insurer, while leveraging the same MedAdvisor global technology platform. HMS has a significant pipeline of opportunities to work collaboratively in the US and Australia and we look forward to working with them under our new Strategic Alliance Agreement.”

Emmet O’Gara, HMS’ Group President, Population Health said: “We have been impressed with MedAdvisor’s capability to help patients around the globe. MedAdvisor’s technology is ideally suited to the HMS customer base and this strategic alliance provides the framework to commercially work together. The initial agreement will support our clients and patients with a secure digital tool with the goal of improving health outcomes and ROI for our customers.”

MedAdvisor and HMS already have prototype health programs being assessed showing promising results and building confidence about the market acceptance of these.

MedAdvisor Chief Revenue Officer Steve Watt said: “As MedAdvisor pushes further into global markets, partnerships like this will help accelerate revenue growth and customer acquisition. This integration broadens MedAdvisor’s sponsor reach in the US beyond pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies to now include payors or insurance companies. The MedAdvisor and HMS solutions complement each other nicely and together we can help improve patient health outcomes and reduce medical complications.”