Emdeon acquires Chamberlin Edmonds

Emdeon Inc. (NYSE: EM), a leading provider of healthcare revenue and payment cycle management solutions, today announced it has completed the acquisition of Chamberlin Edmonds & Associates, Inc., a leading provider of government program eligibility and enrollment services to over 200 acute care facilities in 31 states. Chamberlin Edmonds' technology-enabled services assist hospitals in lowering the incidence of uncompensated care, reducing bad-debt expense and increasing overall cash flow.

Chamberlin Edmonds offers hospitals a unique service model that combines highly-trained professionals located on-site at hospitals, sophisticated workflow technology, regional resolutions centers and a centralized back office infrastructure to deliver cost-efficient, comprehensive and scalable eligibility and enrollment services for government programs. These services track the patient from initial intake through post-enrollment application resolution and offer hospitals the ability to screen, qualify and enroll patients into government, charity and community benefit programs.

"The acquisition of Chamberlin Edmonds provides Emdeon with an enhanced revenue cycle management solution to better address the reimbursement challenges our hospital customers face," said George Lazenby, chief executive officer for Emdeon. "As the government further increases its role in reimbursable care, we believe we will have significant opportunities to cross-sell these value-added products and services to the existing base of 5,000 hospitals already in our network."

Chamberlin Edmonds' professional staff utilizes its technology systems and repetitive, manufacturing-like processes to help maximize eligibility yield and improve cash flow for hospitals. This model, developed over more than twenty years, can be integrated with current Emdeon solutions to produce powerful technology-enabled solutions for hospital customers.

"We believe the healthcare market will benefit tremendously from the combination of Emdeon and Chamberlin Edmonds," said T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, president and chief executive officer for Chamberlin Edmonds & Associates. "Together, we offer a comprehensive technology-enabled revenue cycle management service from one single strategic partner equipped to address the current and future challenges associated with Medicaid and other government sponsored programs."

Emdeon acquired Chamberlin Edmonds for $260 million in cash. The transaction was financed through the use of unrestricted cash and an incremental $100 million term loan under an amendment to Emdeon's existing credit facility.