Nextance Gives Pulse on HIPAA Compliance and Contracts to Covenant Health; 90-day Enterprise Contract Management Deployment Increases Visibility and Purchasing Power

Business Wire, July 25, 2005

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Nextance, the solutions provider setting the standard for advanced contract performance and analytic solutions, today announced positive results from its deployment with Covenant Health, a leading healthcare provider based in Tennessee. With Nextance, Covenant Health is able to ensure compliance with complex and evolving regulations as well as realize other benefits, such as improving purchasing power, productivity and costs.

Like any other large organization, Covenant Health's day-to-day operations hinge on an astounding variety of relationships, including affiliated physicians, property leasing companies, medical equipment suppliers, specialized vendors for prescription management and other areas. Further, its heavily-regulated industry imposes a number of laws that cover everything from patient referrals to privacy to data transmission. A poorly negotiated and managed contract, therefore, not only jeopardizes compliance but decreases the standard of patient care as well as the bottom line.

With 8,000 employees and over 1,700 affiliated physicians dispersed across 23 medical facilities and affiliated companies, Covenant Health deals with thousands of contracts at any given time. Seeking to get a better handle on the process of creating, executing, and managing its complex contracts, the organization conducted an extensive one-year search for the right technology solution and selected Nextance.

Rhonda Crabtree, Covenant Health's vice president of information technology, explained, "With Nextance, we finally now have all our contracts in a single place, giving everyone across our organization on-demand access to the information they need to ensure that terms, deadlines, commitments and regulatory obligations are being fulfilled. We can also quickly and consistently form new relationships that comply with corporate policies and best-practices. Most importantly, we've significantly reduced the risk of non-compliance, particularly with HIPAA, and that has been priceless."

Other benefits Covenant Health has realized from Nextance's enterprise contract management solution include:

--Gaining purchasing power and reducing maverick spending by identifying and standardizing the most appropriate and favorable contract terms;

--Streamlining its operations by accelerating a contract approval process that once could take up to a year and is now able to be completed in less than 45 days;

--Stopping revenue leaks and overpayments by tying every payment it makes or receives to its corresponding contract clause and notifying the right people if a financial obligation isn't being met; and

--Improving productivity and reducing expenses by eliminating the need for several additional clerical employees dedicated to the difficult task of contract management.

"As Covenant Health has shown, delivering seamless and quality patient care starts with how your organization is managed," said Kyle Bowker, president and chief executive officer of Nextance. "Because running a large organization depends on the strength and reliability of its outside relationships, our enterprise contract management solutions are gaining momentum in the healthcare industry and beyond."

About Nextance Inc.

Nextance is setting the standard for enterprise contract management (ECM) solutions, helping Fortune 1000 companies increase the strategic value and realize the full financial return of their contractual relationships. Using Nextance to carefully manage your relationships by managing your contracts helps organizations increase profitability, have better relationships with customers, vendors, and partners, improve employee productivity, and decrease business and financial risk. Nextance customers, including Covenant Health, Eastman Chemical Company, Fireman's Fund, Genzyme Corporation, Sasol, and Sun Microsystems, are using the Nextance Intelligent Enterprise every day throughout their business to tap into the value that's written into every one of their thousands of sales, procurement, IP licensing, and partner agreements. Nextance is based in Redwood City, CA, and is privately held. For additional information, visit www.nextance.com.

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