Insurers, Brokers and Risk Managers Now Have Access to Wide Range of Medical Industry Data:
Hospital, Nursing Home Exposure Information, Legal and Regulatory Data and Market and Pricing Benchmarks;
Significant Data Provided by HealthGrades in New Relationship with Advisen
NEW YORK, March 30, 2004 – Advisen, Ltd., the leading provider of information, analytics and benchmarking for the commercial insurance industry, today expanded its industry-leading information platform for insurance professionals to include hospital and nursing home malpractice data, and additional tools to assess and manage healthcare professional liability risk.
New York-based Advisen currently serves over 200 leading insurers, insurance brokers and risk management organizations. The new content will be combined with existing data on healthcare providers, healthcare equipment and supplies companies and pharmaceutical companies, as well as Advisen’s proprietary benchmarking and policy comparison tools. That new combination will offer underwriters and brokers unparalleled visibility into market dynamics, including pricing. Other tools, like loss analysis and program charting, will facilitate healthcare professional liability risk assessment and management.
The new content will consist of comprehensive healthcare facility exposure information drawn from data on over 6,500 hospitals and nearly 18,000 nursing homes and extended care facilities, as well as from state, legal and regulatory information and daily malpractice news. Advisen will also offer proprietary analytical content on medical malpractice issues, including in-depth analyses of industry trends and developments.
A significant portion of the medical malpractice data is derived through a new relationship between Advisen and Health Grades, Inc., the leading provider of objective quality ratings and information on healthcare facilities.
“Medical malpractice has a wide-ranging impact on the insurance industry, including important implications on the overall healthcare system in this country, but the industry lacks a central resource for exposure information on healthcare facilities, information on the legal and regulatory climate and a comprehensive toolset for insurers, brokers and risk managers to identify and manage that risk,” said Tom Ruggieri, CEO of Advisen. “Advisen first focused on professional liability as the core of its platform and adding medical malpractice to Advisen is a logical enhancement that has already been embraced by a number of our underwriter, broker and risk manager clients, and presages our future direction in complex casualty coverages.”
Advisen created the first, high-value solution dedicated exclusively to the commercial insurance industry. Over the last two years, Advisen has introduced critical data on business risk analysis and analytic tools designed to enhance the efficiencies of insurance transactions. Advisen overlays all of its information with expansive insurance industry-specific data and tools.
The Advisen platform is designed for professionals across the commercial insurance industry. Advisen provides insurance underwriters with a single, customizable information platform for assessing risk exposure, which can be integrated into existing workflow and systems. For brokers, Advisen provides a platform to service existing clients and prospect new ones. Advisen offers risk managers a unified resource for unbiased information and tools to help drive better risk decisions, more efficiently manage insurance programs, and provide insight into market conditions.
HealthGrades Information Offers In Depth Industry Data
Access to HealthGrades’ healthcare quality information gives underwriters, brokers and risk managers the opportunity to identify and review the quality provided by hospitals, physicians and nursing homes. HealthGrades collects hospital data from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and individual states. All data is then risk adjusted to produce an apples-to-apples comparison of hospital performance. HealthGrades gathers physician and nursing home data from public and private sources. Nursing home quality ratings, based on licensing and complaint survey information, are available on almost every nursing home in the United States. HealthGrades also offers over 600,000 comprehensive physician profiles that include board certification and state and Medicare physician sanction data.
About Advisen
Advisen Ltd. offers strategic information services to the global commercial insurance industry, combining comprehensive market data with proprietary analytic and benchmark modeling services via the Internet. Advisen serves the world’s leading insurance companies, brokers and risk managers by providing a systematic perspective on writing, marketing and purchasing lines of commercial insurance.
About HealthGrades
Health Grades, Inc. (OTCBB: HGRD) is the leading independent healthcare quality company, providing ratings, information and advisory services to healthcare providers, employers, health plans and insurance companies. HealthGrades works with healthcare providers to help assess, improve and promote their quality. HealthGrades provides consumers access to information about healthcare providers and practitioners through its Web site and provides liability insurers, employers and payers with critical information about healthcare quality.
