News in brief - Aug. 15, 2011

CMS launches online compare tools

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced the launch of an updated Hospital Compare website and another Web-based tool for consumers.

The agency said the Hospital Compare website now includes information about how well hospitals protect outpatients from surgical infections. It also has data on whether hospitals use proven therapies to treat suspected heart attacks (www.medicare.gov/quality-care-finder).

CMS also launched the Quality Care Finder tool, which provides a one-stop destination for all of CMS' compare tools, including Nursing Home Compare, Physician Compare, Dialyses Facility Compare and Medicare Plan Finder.

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Claims processing firm goes private

Emdeon, a claims processing and revenue cycle management company whose systems are sold to physicians, was removed from public stock trading on Aug. 4 after being bought for $3 billion by a private-equity firm.

Blackstone bought a majority stake in the company for $19 per share, or only $3.50 per share more than the $15.50 trading price Emdeon opened with on its 2009 initial public offering. General Atlantic, another private-equity firm that had bought a majority stake in Emdeon for $1.8 billion in 2006, sold its shares in the transaction.

Emdeon has connections to Healthscape, which was founded in 1995 by Netscape co-founder Jim Clark as his next big Internet venture after that company had a hugely successful Wall Street reception after changing its name to Healtheon.

Healtheon, after merging with WebMD in 1999, paid $2.5 billion in 2000 to acquire Envoy. In 2005 -- after the Internet stock bubble had burst -- Healtheon/WebMD changed its name to Emdeon, and put the WebMD health information business out as a public stock offering.

Analysts said Blackstone's interest in Emdeon was likely because it believed that its stock was undervalued at a time when health system reform is creating more demand for the automated services that Emdeon provides.

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