Silverlink In the News

BURLINGTON - It would be nearly impossible for health insurance companies to call all of their 250 million customers.

But Burlington-based Silverlink Communications Inc. provides a way to call thousands of people quickly and cheaply, while still allowing more than just a standard, static message.

The four-year-old company provides health insurance companies and related businesses with the ability to make outbound, interactive, automated phone calls -- with interactive being a key component of the service.

An insurance company that wants to remind patients to refill prescriptions could use Silverlink's platform to not only remind them, but have them reorder then and there.

The market for such uses is big, Silverlink officials said, and it's growing as the health insurance industry undergoes significant changes, such as the recent addition of Medicare prescription drug coverage.

"Health plan companies are interested today in reaching out to their members in new ways. And they're trying to do that in economically effective manners, but also in ways that make their members feel good. Silverlink has a solution that does that well," said Peter Grua, managing partner of Boston-based HLM Venture Partners, a venture capital company that focuses on health care. ''The technology is simple, flexible, and easy to use, and can be integrated into the systems that healthcare companies already have."

The idea for Silverlink reaches back some two decades, when as a high school and college student, Stan Nowak witnessed his grandfather struggle with aging. As glaucoma stole the senior Nowak's sight, he lost the ability to drive, count money, even shop for himself.

The younger Nowak never forgot the experience. And, even as he built his career in various technology-related companies, he didn't lose his desire to help others in similar situations.

So when Nowak and co-worker Paulo Matos were laid off from their jobs at StorageNetworks Inc. in late 2001, they decided to start their own company.

Working out of the first floor of Matos's two-family East Arlington house, the pair started to recruit colleagues and focus their ideas. They knew they wanted to focus on interactive communications for the healthcare industry, and as they tweaked the direction, Nowak kept one guiding point in mind: ''I didn't want [seniors] to have to adopt technology. I didn't want them to have to do anything," he said.

The company rose quickly from its modest start with three workers self-funding the enterprise. Angel investors provided the first two rounds of funding that combined brought in more than $600,000 during 2002. Sigma Partners of Boston invested $2 million in May 2003, and HLM Venture Partners led a second round worth $5.6 million a year later.

Meanwhile, Silverlink outgrew its Arlington digs and moved to Burlington. The company will be moving again soon, to a new Burlington location that at 15,000 square feet, is more than twice the size of its current space.

The company now employs 40 people, and its clients are among some of the biggest names in the industry. Aetna Inc. and Group Health Inc. are among the health insurers who use Silverlink's solutions, as is Familymeds Inc., a specialty retail pharmacy headquartered in Farmington, Conn. Silverlink's customers combined manage more than 150 million lives and, using Silverlink, provide information to more than 20,000 people a day.

Familymeds started using Silverlink about a year ago to remind patients to refill prescriptions, said Noreen Patterson, Familymeds' vice president of marketing and advertising.

"This innovative way of having a voice-activated, consumer-friendly call [allows us] to reach out to more of our customers in a more timely fashion," Patterson said. The company had used workers at individual pharmacies to do the task, a practice that was time consuming and expensive

Patterson said her company quickly found that Silverlink's products could be used for much more. When Merck & Co.'s Vioxx was recalled last year, Familymeds notified all its customers with Vioxx prescriptions with relevant information. The message was ready to roll within 12 hours of the recall announcement.

But Silverlink provides more than just a calling service. A prescription refill reminder, for example, doesn't just give the patient a short recorded message. Instead, it allows the patient to place the refill order right away.

Companies use Silverlink's platform primarily for three reasons: educating their customers, changing behavior, and collecting data. An insurer could use Silverlink, for example, to tell customers about a drug recall, or encourage them to move from a brand-name drug to a generic equivalent, or collect information about emergency contacts.

These calls only require recipients to listen and push the appropriate numbers on their dial pads. It's that simplicity -- born out of Nowak's idea of keeping it simple for seniors -- that has been a big selling point, Silverlink officials said.

Silverlink's clients are also sold on how easy it is for them to send out these calls. Silverlink's clients use a Web-based tool to create and manage the messages that will go out to their customers.

"Our technology really simplifies the creation and execution of outbound interactive calls to people. So our customers find it easy and flexible to use. As a result, they're able to launch and modify their programs quickly," said Matos, now Silverlink's chief operating officer.

This ease, along with security requirements, has also allowed Silverlink to compete against another fast-growing communications tool: the Internet.

''E-mail is very inexpensive, but information that's transmitted via e-mail cannot be secured," Matos said.

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 requires health providers and related companies to protect personal information, making mass distribution of information via e-mail difficult.

Plus, Matos said, Silverlink clients report that e-mail addresses tend to change much more quickly than patients' phone numbers, making phone calls more effective than e-mails.

Such factors have helped Silverlink double year over year -- in revenue and employees, Matos said, although he wouldn't release revenue figures.

But he and others did say the future looks as promising. Changes in health insurance, such as the move to consumer-driven plans and the new Medicare Part D program that will provide $540 million in drug benefits to seniors over the next 10 years, will require companies to reach out more often to their customers.

"There's a growing need and demand for the product or solutions that address cheap interaction," Grua said. ''Our technology is clearly applicable, and we're finding more than enough opportunities."

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