DAOU Systems Affirms Optio's HIPAASmart Solution to Help Healthcare Organizations Meet HIPAA Compliance Regulations

Business Wire, April 24, 2001

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 24, 2001

Noted Industry Leader Recognizes Optio's Unique Offering as

Best-of-Breed Technology Platform for Payors, Providers and

Other Covered Entities to Meet Essential Elements

of HIPAA Regulations

Optio Software Inc. (Nasdaq:OPTO), a leading provider of e-healthcare solutions that enable organizations to exchange information between patients, payors and providers, today announced that DAOU Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:DAOU) has reviewed Optio's HIPAASmart(TM) strategy that addresses the technology and process issues needed to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). After an extensive review of Optio's HIPAASmart offering, DAOU Systems has concluded that HIPAASmart is "one of the most unique offerings available to all covered entities and appropriate to help payors, providers and other covered entities meet many of the regulatory compliance requirements of HIPAA." DAOU Systems based its appraisal on a substantive assessment of HIPAASmart against the applicable HIPAA regulations, industry-wide technology and security best practices.

"The ability to support the (proposed) Security regulations under HIPAA is one of the most essential elements that technology solution providers like Optio must incorporate in an offering to the marketplace," said Mike Fisher, National Director of DAOU's HIPAA Solutions Group. "In our assessment, Optio's HIPAASmart solution will provide a valuable tool that a covered entity can utilize to meet or exceed the applicable regulatory provisions required under HIPAA and is one of the most unique offerings of its kind to the healthcare industry. In addition, the functional and process capabilities of a product like HIPAASmart may offer a ROI opportunity to covered entities, reducing their overall cost of compliance."

Mark Isbitts, healthcare product manager for Optio stated, "We designed HIPAASmart to deliver on the need healthcare organizations have and to build the capability into one powerful, scaleable solution to address all four areas of compliance, including Transaction Formats and Code Sets, Unique Identifiers, and Privacy and Security. Because of invaluable input and assistance from DAOU Systems, we engineered HIPAASmart to help all covered entities meet the HIPAA requirements. Our ability to provide powerful rules-based logic that permits the secure exchange of patient information, both internally within an organization, as well as externally with other entities, along with access and auditing controls, is what positions Optio ahead of other vendor's offerings. In addition, HIPAASmart can help an organization simultaneously build a platform for the move into e-healthcare."

Specifically, HIPAASmart helps covered entities meet several key regulatory compliance requirements including:

Internal & External Compliance Requirements:

-- Security functionality to protect patient information in electronic form
from being misused (intentionally or accidentally), including controls to
prevent unauthorized access to patient data,

-- Privacy regulatory support to manage the electronic distribution of patient
data within and external to the organization, helping to ensure an individual
patient's information is restricted to only those who need to see it, with the
consent of the patient, while tracking such disclosures.

External Compliance Requirements:

-- Transaction Format & Code Sets (also known as the Transaction

Standard) for translation and message brokering of the nine

mandated transactions and code sets into ANSI X.12.N 4010.

-- Unique Identifiers which will allocate a unique code for all

employers, providers, and payors.

HIPAASmart draws upon Optio's best-of-breed solutions installed in over 600 hospitals, Integrated Delivery Networks (IDN) and some of the country's leading payor organizations, including several Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans.

About Optio Software, Inc.

Optio Software, Inc. provides e-healthcare software that enables B2B integration, exchange and presentation of information across 100% of an organization's partners and systems. Optio's software improves the quality of an organization's communications with providers, payors, suppliers and employees by customizing, delivering and exchanging information over a global network of digital destinations. Optio's products are being used to integrate diverse applications requiring high availability and throughput, as infrastructure for B2B commerce and to tailor the information from HIS, departmental, e-healthcare and legacy applications for delivery and exchange as XML, EDI, Web content and customized documents according to individualized requirements and HIPAA compliance.

Optio's solutions are non-intrusive and can be deployed without modifying the software or the business processes that created the original information. Optio is implemented in over 700 healthcare organizations. For more information, contact Optio Software -- Phone: 770/576-3500. Fax: 770/576-3699. Email: info@optiosoftware.com. Corporate Headquarters: 3015 Windward Plaza, Windward Fairways II, Alpharetta, GA 30005. www.optiosoftware.com. For HIPAA information, please contact hipaasmart@optiosoftware.com.