Amisys shed some light on its heavier-weight Advance version

October 2004

Amisys shed some light on its heavier-weight Advance version

Another HP 3000 application provider made news with its migration effort when Amisys Synertech announced beta tests of Amisys Advance Release 2 should be completed by the end of this year. Health Advantage, the “largest and oldest HMO in Arkansas, is the beta site for Amisys Advance Release 2,” according to PR manager Dario Bernardini. The second release of Advance, which Amisys is offering to a market that includes about 60 HP 3000 customers, replaces the application’s PowerHouse screen interface with a Java-based GUI.

Amisys officials said in a press release that Health Advantage, an affiliate of Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, should complete its migration to Advance Release 2 in the third quarter of 2005. BlueAdvantage Administrators of Arkansas, a sister company and third-party administrator that processes claims and manages benefits for self-insured groups, should complete its migration to Advance Release 2 shortly afterward. “By the end of 2005, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield will manage claims for nearly 400,000 members on the Amisys Advance Release 2 platform,” the release stated.

This customer already had experience with beta-testing Amisys software. Health Advantage had previously served as the beta site for the MPE-based Amisys 3000 Release 10. Its members recently gave the HMO high marks for the services it delivered using the HP 3000 application. “Health Advantage members give us high marks for timely and accurate claims processing and customer-service satisfaction,” said Joseph Smith, Health Advantage vice president and CIO. “The 2004 HEDIS survey indicates that about 90 percent of members are satisfied that their claims are handled in a reasonable amount of time, and 96 percent say their claims are handled correctly. Part of that performance is due to the better predictability and control of complex business processes afforded by the Amisys [3000] product. It has a design that makes maintenance simpler.”

Health Advantage is following its application vendor off the 3000 platform, however, despite customer satisfaction with the current platform. The Amisys migration strategy was designed to replicate functionality of the HP 3000 application before making changes in Release 2 of Advance. Transoft and Core Migration both provided professional services to migrate the HP 3000 application to HP-UX and Oracle. The HMO’s Smith believes the newest version will maintain satisfaction. “Amisys Synertech has been very responsive and has delivered excellent oversight during testing,” Smith said in the press release. “We’re confident that by moving to Amisys Advance, we will continue our record of fast, efficient claims processing and payment.”