Patient engagement firm Eliza purchased for $170m by HMS Holdings
Healthcare management systems company HMS Holdings has acquired cloud-based engagement platform provider Eliza in a cash deal worth $170m. Eliza, which uses smart profiling to determine the best way to make contact with customers, for example, for medication adherence, has strong links to several major US health plans, including Medicaid and Medicare. "This acquisition will represent an additional building block in our strategic expansion into the fields of care and population analytics and risk management, and will present both potential short and longer term growth avenues for HMS," said HMS CEO and chairman Bill Lucia in a statement.

Irving, Texas-based HMS Holdings, which owns a number of subsidiaries that offer software tools for payers, has acquired health engagement platform provider Eliza Corporation for a cash purchase price of $170 million.

Eliza offers a SaaS engagement platform to employers, providers, health plans, hospitals, pharmacies and clinics to help them establish the best method and time to engage customers for different use cases, such as medication adherence. The company positions itself as meeting customers where they are, and gathering data that can be analyzed and leveraged to better inform future interactions.

The company uses “smart profiling” to figure out which is the best way to reach each customer, at which time of day and through which channel, be it text message, phone calls, email, snail mail, their website or via existing mobile apps. As Eliza founder Alexandra Drane previously told MobiHealthNews in an interview, "We have a health engagement platform that tells us what we should be doing with whom, and then we shamelessly leverage whatever channel makes sense.”

Eliza is attractive to HMS for a number of reasons. The company has a strong presence with many major US health plans including Medicaid and Medicare, and it offers tools not just to improve the consumer experience, but to increase organizations’ revenue and renewal rates, as well as improve quality of care delivery and cost efficiencies. The cloud-based platform uses proprietary predictive analytics, behavioral science and data-driven outreach methodologies that have led to Eliza accruing more than 50 domestic and international patents and patent applications (which will all go to HMS under the acquisition).

"Payers are seeking reliable insights and actionable information to manage risk and improve the quality of care delivered. The addition of Eliza will position HMS to impact both revenue and costs for our health plan customers, while continuing to supply needed tools to more effectively manage the care of their members across all markets,” HMS CEO and Chairman Bill Lucia said in a statement. “This acquisition will represent an additional building block in our strategic expansion into the fields of care and population analytics and risk management, and will present both potential short and longer term growth avenues for HMS. We will also be able to utilize certain Eliza operational assets and analytics to strengthen the delivery of our core products.”

Lucia also noted the added benefit of Eliza’s tools working alongside other capabilities in HMS’ wheelhouse, particularly those gained with the company’s September 2016 acquistion of population health company Essette.

“Eliza has perfected both the art and science of member outreach and engagement, which is a particularly complementary offering for the EssetteSuite care and population management technology platform -- allowing our customers to take effective action in closing gaps in care -- and a great opportunity to leverage our ability to identify high utilizers in the HMS database,” stated Lucia.