Press Release

Top Healthcare Organizations Use First Turnkey Voice Solution for Educating, Enrolling and Managing Medicare Part D Beneficiaries; Plans Ease Beneficiary Confusion with Automated Calls

WASHINGTON - (BUSINESS WIRE) Silverlink Communications, the leader in automated voice solutions for healthcare enterprises, today announced the availability of its Medicare Part D (MPD) Communications Suite, the first fully automated set of voice solutions designed specifically to help Medicare Advantage - Prescription Drug (MA-PD) plans and Prescription Drug Plans (PDPs) educate, enroll and manage Part D beneficiaries. More effective than traditional outreach methods such as postal mailers or email, and more affordable than live call center telephone calls, Silverlink's MPD Communications Suite represents a new, highly effective way to help plans communicate with beneficiaries.

Medicare Part D is complex, and most participants will experience changes in where they get medications, how they order medications and how they get reimbursed. Effective communication about the plan is critical. Some target populations lack experience with the managed care system and have limited or no Internet access. Some potential beneficiaries are managing visual, cognitive, and memory decline and many are skeptical after recent experiences with the Medicare drug card program. And, as with any healthcare communication, HIPAA compliance must be maintained. These factors combine to make effective Part D communication challenging. The key to effective Part D communication is delivering the right information, in digestible increments, in a format that is appealing to the audience and complies with privacy regulations.

"Effective communication is the key to the near-term success of the Medicare Part D program, since there's often a fairly steep learning curve for target populations," said Stan Nowak, President and CEO of Silverlink Communications. He cited a Kaiser Family Foundation Survey published in August 2005 that indicated that 60% of seniors do not understand the new Part D drug benefit and only 32% report having a favorable impression of the program. "If implemented well, Part D has the potential to ease the burden of prescription drug costs for a large number of Americans, and it represents a significant financial opportunity for approved plans. Silverlink's customers are currently deploying our technology, and that is making a real difference in easing confusion and is putting seniors in a better position to make informed decisions come November when enrollment in the program begins."

In its MPD Communications Suite, Silverlink has developed turnkey solutions to manage the communication needs of each phase of Part D benefit delivery - Enrollment, Transitioning, Service Delivery and Claims and Administration. Over 20 call programs in all are currently ready for customers to deploy. Strict measures are taken to ensure regulatory compliance and detailed call results are available to customers via a secure website. Customers can implement the MPD Communications Suite in a matter of days with little IT involvement, no custom programming, and no hardware or software to acquire or maintain.

Silverlink's interactive calls allow the recipient to control how much information to receive at a time. The system uses voice recognition to monitor whether the recipient wants to hear more information, repeat information already delivered, or end the call. As required, the option to transfer to a live licensed agent or call center representative is available. Silverlink's automated call technology is highly effective with senior populations who prefer phone calls to other communications vehicles. Silverlink's experience in delivering up to 25,000 calls per hour has shown that seniors have higher success rates during automated calls than any other age group.

Silverlink will be demonstrating its MPD Communications Suite at the AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans) Medicare Conference in Washington, D.C., September 12 - 14, 2005.

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