HMS Holdings Acquires Nebraska-Based Intrado's Accent Unit

 | Dec 25, 2019 10:45PM ET

HMS Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:HMSY) closed the acquisition of Accent, the payment accuracy and cost-containment business of Intrado Corporation, for $155 million. The deal, announced last month, is expected to boost HMS Holdings’ Payment Integrity solutions business.

For investors’ notice, Nebraska-based Intrado is an innovative, cloud-based, global technology partner to clients worldwide, while Accent operates as a healthcare payment accuracy and cost-containment company. Accent’s offerings include comprehensive prospective and retrospective claims accuracy solutions.

Rationale Behind the Deal

With the acquisition of Accent, HMS Holdings is likely to witness customer base expansion and gain further financial efficiency. Per management, the deal will help expand the breadth of the company’s Prospective and Retrospective Claims Accuracy Services to Commercial and Medicare Advantage Health Plans.

Notably, Accent’s offerings will help HMS Holdings incorporate both cost avoidance and overpayment recovery services. This will likely result in immediate market expansion and growth opportunities for HMS Holdings.

Payment Integrity solutions in Focus

The deal will also boost the company’s Payment Integrity solutions business, which comes under HMS Holdings’ unique suite of Analytical Services apart from Population Health Management solutions.

It is encouraging to note that in recent times, the business grew 11.1% year over year. The business is also expected to see an upside in the fourth quarter of 2019 on both year-over-year and sequential basis. Notably, management at HMS Holdings believes that the payment integrity market represents tremendous opportunities, worth $5-$6 billion.

Reflective of this, the company expects fourth-quarter revenues of $167-$177 million.