IRVING, Texas--HMS, Inc., (“HMS”) a wholly owned subsidiary of HMS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:HMSY), today announced that the company has saved the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) nearly $65 million to date through its dependent eligibility verification project, resulting in the removal of 8,940 ineligible dependents from health plans. Additional savings are expected when HMS completes the remaining eligibility cycles in early 2015.
On November 18, CalPERS reported to the Board of Administration’s Pension & Health Benefits Committee projected savings of more than $106 million, $41 million of which is attributable to CalPERS’ own amnesty period, in which plan members voluntarily removed dependents, and the balance of which was the result of work by HMS.
HMS has been the national leader in dependent eligibility services since 2004, saving billions of dollars for clients and their benefit programs. The Company has conducted over 1,000 verification projects covering more than four million dependents for State Employee Health Benefit plans, municipalities, unions, school districts, Fortune 500 companies and mid-sized corporations.
About HMS Holdings Corp.
HMS Holdings Corp., through its subsidiaries, is the nation's leader in coordination of benefits and program integrity services for healthcare payers. HMS's customers include health and human services programs in more than 45 states and the District of Columbia; commercial payers, including group health plans, Medicare Advantage Plans, more than 160 Medicaid managed care plans, and employers; the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS); and Veterans Administration facilities. As a result of the company's services, customers received billions in cash recoveries in 2014, and saved billions more through the prevention of erroneous payments.
About CalPERS
For more than eight decades, CalPERS has built retirement and health security for state, school, and public agency members who invest their lifework in public service. The Pension Fund serves more than 1.7 million members in the CalPERS retirement system and administers benefits for nearly 1.4 million members and their families in its health program, making it the largest defined-benefit public pension in the U.S. CalPERS’ total fund market value current stands at approximately $296 billion. For more information, visit www.calpers.ca.gov.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements give our expectations or forecasts of future events; they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as “anticipates,” “estimates,” “expects,” “projects,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “will,” “target,” “seeks,” “forecast” and similar expressions and references to guidance. In particular, these include statements relating to future actions, business plans, objectives and prospects, and future operating or financial performance. Forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy and other future conditions. Should known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove inaccurate, actual results could differ materially from past results and those anticipated, estimated or projected. We caution you therefore against relying on any of these forward-looking statements.
Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: variations in our results of operations; changes in the U.S. healthcare environment and steps we take in anticipation of such changes; regulatory, budgetary or political actions that affect procurement practices; our ability to retain clients or the loss of one or more major clients, including through our failure to reprocure a contract or the reduction in scope or early termination of one or more of our significant contracts; our ability to effectively manage our growth to execute on our business plans; the risk that guidance may not be achieved including but not limited to the risk that we may not achieve non-Medicare margin expansion; the risk that HMS will not receive a contract award for any current or future procurement or reprocurement or that either or both may be delayed; the risk of negative or reduced growth rate of spending on Medicaid/Medicare, simplification of the healthcare payment process or programmatic changes that diminish the scope of benefits; the risk that CMS may not support the RAC program, may change the RAC program and reduce future fees, and may require repayment of certain prior fees; our ability to retain clients or the loss of one or more major clients; client dissatisfaction or early termination of contracts triggering significant costs or liabilities; the development by competitors of new or superior products or services; the emergence of new competitors, or the development by our clients of in-house capacity to perform the services we offer; all the risks inherent in the development, introduction, and implementation of new products and services; our failure to comply with laws and regulations governing health data or to protect such data from theft and misuse; our ability to maintain effective information systems and protect them from damage or interruption; restrictions on our ability to bid on/perform certain work due to other work we currently perform; our ability to successfully integrate our acquisitions; our ability to continue to secure contracts through the competitive bidding process and to accurately predict the cost and time to complete such contracts; our compliance with the covenants and obligations under the terms of our credit facility and our ability to generate sufficient cash to cover our interest and principal payments thereunder; and negative results of government or client reviews, audits or investigations to verify our compliance with contracts and applicable laws and regulations; the risk that savings for plans or capture of findings will not be as expected; or the risk that expected additional savings will not be realized.
A further description of these and other risks, uncertainties, and related matters can be found in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2013, which is available at www.hms.com under the “Investor Relations” tab. Factors or events that could cause actual results to differ may emerge from time to time and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. Any forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and we do not undertake an obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law.