NEWS BRIEFS

Blue Cross of California selected Sourcecorp (Dallas), a provider of business process solutions, to provide information management services for its health claims processing in California. Under the terms of the three-year contract, Sourcecorp will assist Blue Cross of California in streamlining the processing of health claims and related correspondence. Blue Cross of California is in the process of centralizing its claims-handling mailroom center. Sourcecorp will oversee a centralized mailroom, receive incoming health claims, and capture key data and information from the claims in a HIPAA-compliant environment.

A new survey by Gartner, Inc. (Stamford, CT), has found that significant numbers of insurers are turning to business processing and IT outsourcing to reduce operating costs and streamline business operations. Fifty-one percent of life and health insurers, and 48 percent of property and casualty firms outsourced at least one business process last year, according to Gartner's survey of 114 US insurance carriers that had written premium of at least $100 million. A further six percent of life and health companies and nine percent of P&C carriers plan to outsource some business processes this year, the study found.

Prudential Financial, Inc. (Newark, NJ), is using Adlex's (Marlborough, MA) UserVisibility Client View 4.3 to monitor the end-to-end user response time on its virtual private network (VPN). By measuring the response time received by each VPN user, Client View detects problems and IT technical support staff can resolve individual end-user problems quickly.

Antares Management Solutions (Westlake, OH) and Westfield Services Inc. formed an alliance that will enable the technology service providers to strengthen their services to existing and potential clients. Antares offers information management, full-service claims processing, customer service and software development capabilities to the health insurance industry. Westfield Services, with headquarters in Ohio, provides similar services and data management and business processing solutions for property/casualty and life carriers. The two firms will work to provide outsourcing clients with full-service administration of life, health and P&C claims.