FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: John C. Barrett

Thursday, June 04, 1998 (407)282-5131

On Thursday, May 28, the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission/URAC issued accreditation to Med Advantage located in Orlando, Florida - Med Advantage is one of the first Credentials Verification Organizations (CVO's) to be accredited under the Commission/URAC’s standards for CVOs, which were approved by the Commission/ URAC Board of Directors in April.

According to Dr. John B. Witty, president of Med Advantage, "Accreditation by the Commission/URAC is a strong indicator to our PPO clients that we meet stringent quality standards."

"We congratulate Med Advantage on this important accomplishment, "said Commission/URAC president and CEO Garry Carneal. He continued, "Provider credentialing is one of the most fundamental patient protections that managed care organizations provide, and CVOs are an important part of that process."

The accreditation standards establish guidelines to ensure that CVOs thoroughly check the professional qualifications of providers in managed care networks, and include guidelines for site visits of practitioner offices. The CVO accreditation standards provide benchmarks for the following areas:

• CVOs organizational integrity and structure, including training of credentialing staff;
• Information collected from providers for credentialing;
• Methods of verification of information collected from providers;
• Time frames for consideration of credentialing information;
• Security and confidentiality of credentialing information; and
• Procedures for on-site reviews of provider offices.

Dr. Witty was also impressed with the Commission/URAC accreditation process, "instead of being punitive, the Commission/URAC takes an educational approach to accreditation," he said. "This will assist the PPO community as it strives to demonstrate quality and accountability in credentialing and other areas," he added.

Med Advantage is considered one of the largest CVO's in the country and is fully certified as a CVO by the National Committee for Quality Assurance^** (NCQA) for both managed care and behavioral healthcare. The database which Med Advantage has compiled currently holds over 750,000 providers and has over 4.3 million elements verified according to both NCQA and The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) standards.

For more information about Med Advantage, including marketing prospectus, contact John C. Barrett, Senior Vice President @ 407-282-5131 or our web page at

WWW.med-advantage.com.

More information about the Commission/URAC CVO accreditation program, including copies of the standards and accreditation applications, can be obtained by contacting Lesley Malus at the Commission/URAC at (202)216-9010.