November 7, 2013 |

Experian buys Passport Health

Known mainly as a credit reporting and marketing firm, Great Britain-based Experian, whose U.S. headquarters is located in Costa Mesa, Calif., announced this week that it will acquire Franklin, Tenn.-based Passport Health Communications Inc. for $850 million.

Passport Health is known in the industry primarily as a claims clearinghouse specializing in insurance eligibility verification. But it also offers patient demographics verification, patient bill estimation and payment, and enterprise scheduling, as well as physician/patient Web portals.

The inclusion of Passport Health will not only add to Experian's growing stable of healthcare IT companies, but also will bring on board thousands of new provider clients.

In 2008 Experian bought SearchAmerica which specializes in patient demographic verification software as well as a data breach response system that provides credit and identity protection for persons whose protected information has been compromised.

Then, in 2011, Experian acquired Medical Present Value, a software company whose products allow providers the ability to check the performance of health insurers' compliance with their contracts—a valuable asset when providers are renegotiating contracts.

With the acquisition of those two companies and Passport Health, Experian will increase its healthcare database to over four billion records.