March 30, 2000 02:08
Health insurers to form Internet venture - NYT
NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - Six of the largest health insurers are developing their own online project to make it easier for patients to enroll in health plans and choose doctors, blocking Internet health care companies from moving into their territory in cyberspace, the New York Times said Thursday.
The consortium, whose members are Aetna U.S. Healthcare , Cigna Corp., WellPoint Health Networks Inc. , Oxford Health Plans Inc. , Foundation Health Systems Inc. and PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. have been in talks with IBM and Oracle Corp. and several smaller technologies companies to develop the project, the Times said.
The initiative, tentatively called MedUnite, will help patients choose not only doctors but hospitals and would replace paperwork and telephone calls, the Times said.
The companies are expected to formally announce the project within the next 60 days, the Times said.
MedUnite will pit the insurers against Healtheon/WebMD Corp. , the biggest Internet health care company. Before the companies develop the venture, they were to become Healtheon's biggest customers, the Times said.
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Rather than creating a competitor for HLTH, strikes me that this consortium is the potential buyer of HLTH. We'll have to see how the market reads the news. First take is likely to be negative although it is possible that anticipation of this news was already offsetting the "good" news of the Fili-Krushel hire yesterday. |
