BCE Emergis to Provide the B.C. Government With Medical Claims Adjudication Solution

Business Wire, Nov 10, 2004

MONTREAL -- BCE Emergis Inc. (TSX:IFM) is pleased to announce that it is part of an industry consortium, led by MAXIMUS Canada Inc., which has been awarded a ten-year contract by the Ministry of Health Services of British Columbia to develop a new electronic service delivery model for the province's Medical Services Plan. BCE Emergis will provide to the B.C. Government a secure medical claims adjudication solution and processing environment that it will maintain during the life of the contract. BCE Emergis expects to generate revenue of more than $30 million over its 10-year term.

"We look forward to being part of this team and to delivering and hosting one of the most advanced adjudication systems in North America for the B.C. Ministry of Health Services," said Francois Cote, President and Chief Executive Officer of BCE Emergis. "We have a proven track record of working with provincial governments to implement solutions that improve the quality of services to the public, physicians, pharmacists and other health care professionals through more efficient and cost-effective claims management and lower overall operational costs."

The claims adjudication system and hosting environment to be implemented by BCE Emergis leverage its state of the art adjudication applications. It is designed to improve efficiencies by reducing backlogs in registration and manual claims adjudication. It is highly secure, capable of automatically adjudicating at least 99% of all inbound Medical Services Plan claims in batch or real-time, scalable to handle increasing and peak volumes, and is cost effective.

"This contract demonstrates the value of our solutions to the government claims outsourcing market as we expand our offering to include medical claims adjudication. The public health care sector represents a significant market for BCE Emergis and contract wins, such as this one, strengthen our position as we pursue opportunities with other provincial governments," added Francois Cote.

BCE Emergis already has strong relationships with the Canadian health care community and a secure network that links it together. It is a leading provider of electronic health claims processing, adjudication and payment services in Canada, serving top private and public insurers. Its electronic platforms enable the seamless exchange of information from health care providers to adjudication service providers, and ultimately to insurers.

In addition to a medical claims adjudication system, the consortium led by MAXIMUS Canada will provide the B.C. Ministry of Health Services with beneficiary and provider services, registration, a province-wide customer service centre as well as public and employer group services. MAXIMUS Canada is a subsidiary of MAXIMUS, Inc., one of North America's leading government services companies devoted to providing program management, consulting and information technology services.

About BCE Emergis

BCE Emergis Inc. is a leading North American eBusiness company. Its operations consist of supplying eBusiness solutions to the North American financial services and Canadian health care industries, automating transactions between companies and allowing them to interact and transact electronically. Its leading solutions are centred on claims, loans and payments processing.

BCE Emergis customers include leading Canadian health insurers, top U.S. banks, the top six Canadian banks and a number of North America's largest enterprises. The Company's shares (TSX:IFM) are included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index.

Certain statements made in this press release are forward-looking and are subject to important risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The results or events predicted in these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results or events. These statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Other factors that could cause results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things: general economic factors, adoption of eBusiness, adoption rate of our solutions by customers, response to industry's rapid pace of change, competition, operating results, success of U.S.-based operations, the change in control following the exchange of BCE Inc.'s subscription receipts for common shares, integration of past acquisitions, failure or material change in our strategic relationships, including our relationship with Bell Canada, exposure under contract indemnities, defects in software or failures in the processing of transactions, security and privacy breaches, key personnel, protection of intellectual property, intellectual property infringement claims, integrity of public key cryptography technology, and industry and government regulation. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, refer to BCE Emergis Inc.'s Annual Report (Management Discussion and Analysis) and the BCE Emergis Inc. Annual Information Form (Risks and Uncertainties) filed with the Canadian securities commissions.