A Medical Device Daily

The TriZetto Group (Greenwood Village, Colorado) reported a partnership with Three Rivers Provider Network (TRPN; Chula Vista, California) that gives TriZetto's benefits-administrator customers pre-negotiated discounts as high as 25% and preferred pricing for out-of-network services obtained by members. This discounted pricing can help third-party administrators (TPAs) reduce plan costs and improve overall plan savings for their employer groups, while creating additional revenue streams.

TRPN is the nation's largest proprietary supplemental provider-discount network, with some 600,000 providers nationwide, including more than 5,000 hospitals and 70,000 ancillary facilities.

TRPN is the latest addition to the TriZetto Premier Partnership Program.

The program leverages the large customer base of TriZetto's QicLink Extended Enterprise core administration system to provide optimal pricing of innovative, integrated vendor products and services that can help TPAs and their self-funded employer customers manage the cost and quality of care.

“With employers looking for greater sophistication and flexibility to effectively manage plan costs, this solution provides benefits administrators with a more competitive offering through the deployment of a best-in-class out-of-network management system,“ said Rob Scavo, president of the emerging market and benefits administration business units at TriZetto. “It enables TPA customers of TriZetto to offer the value-add of network cost-containment in addition to their core service of administering claim payments.“

In other agreements/contracts; Integra LifeSciences Holdings (Plainsboro, New Jersey) said that it has signed a new multi-year contract with Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte) the group purchasing unit of the Premier healthcare alliance, to provide dural repair, neuro trauma (neuro critical care), neuro instrumentation, hydrocephalus and neurosurgical closure products to Premier's member hospitals.

“We are very pleased that Premier has selected Integra as a contracted provider of market-leading neurosurgical products to its broad base of over 2,500 acute healthcare facilities,“ said Chris Thatcher, president, Integra Neurosurgery. “The renewal of this contract validates our long standing relationship and commitment to provide Premier's client base with the most advanced and innovative neurosurgical products and highest quality services.“