NEW ELECTRONIC PAYMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR HEALTH CARE LAUNCHED BY EVOLUTION HEALTH

Evolution Health today launched its Benny Card, a stored-value card designed initally to simplify and broaden the use of healthcare flexible spending accounts. FSAs allow employees to use pretax income to pay for out-of-pocket health care costs. Rather than file claims and wait for reimbursements, FSA participants can use Benny to draw down their accounts in real time. It saves employers and employees tax dollars and paves the way to more consumer-directed health plans in the future.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:   Elayne Cree
Cree Communications
909-590-3262 (10 am to 8 pm Eastern Time)
elayne@creecommunications.com

Donna Porritt
Evolution Health, LLC
860-678-3471 (9 am to 6 pm Eastern Time)
dporritt@evhinc.com

NEW ELECTRONIC PAYMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR HEALTH CARE LAUNCHED BY EVOLUTION HEALTH

Viewed As First Step in Evolutionary Movement to Consumer-Directed Benefits

AVON, Conn. February 11, 2002: Evolution Health, LLC, today announced the national launch of its new electronic payment technology product called the Benny Card, a special purpose stored-value MasterCard® being used initially to simplify and broaden the use of health care flexible spending accounts (FSAs). These accounts permit employees to use their own payroll funds on a pre-tax basis to pay for out-of-pocket health care costs. The Benny Card is being marketed through the companys Evolution Benefits division and can be used with any health care provider that accepts MasterCard.
Robert E. Patricelli, who serves as its chairman and chief executive officer, founded Evolution Health in 2000. Patricelli previously founded Value Health, Inc., a specialty managed care company that went on to become a New York Stock Exchange company with over $2 billion in annual revenues.
Explaining Evolution Healths mission, Patricelli said, Employers are again struggling to find ways to deal with double digit increases in benefit costs and are having to pass part of those increases on to their employees. Helping employees meet these added burdens by using pre-tax dollars makes sense for everyone involved." According to a 2001 study of employee benefits managers by consulting firm Watson Wyatt, over 70 percent of employers expect to shift additional costs to employees through increased co-pays or benefit reductions in 2002.
Patricelli pointed out that, Under current FSA plans, employees have to pay up front for their uncovered expenses, save all their receipts, then remember to send them in to get reimbursed by check from their own FSA funds. This is administratively clumsy and expensive, and makes people wait to get their own money back."
The Benny Card changes all that," according to Andrew Dahl, Evolution Benefits president, because all it takes is a card swipe at the pharmacy or provider office and the co-pay or other qualified expense is automatically deducted from the FSA account in real time. Weve used modern, debit card-type technology to make FSA administration virtually all electronic. And employees can access the BennyCard.com web site to view their transaction history and monitor their balance anytime, day or night."
The employees of Evolutions customers will find that the prepaid cards security and portability will make it much easier to manage their health care out-of-pocket costs, " said Bill Mathis, senior vice president, North America Member Relations, MasterCard International. The growing adoption of prepaid MasterCard cards in the insurance industry will broaden the use of health care FSAs, a growing trend in the health care sector."
While the Benny Cards first application will be to FSAs, Evolution Health sees its card technology as key to the development of new forms of consumer-directed employee benefits. These new consumer based programs should be coupled with modern payment technology that reduces the costs of administration compared to legacy claims systems," Patricelli said. In fact, he added, we are already working with several national health plan companies on the potential use of Benny to help power their new defined contribution benefit designs."
One of Evolution Healths initial launch customers is Northeast Utilities (NU), a Fortune 500 company based in Berlin, Conn. Jean LaVecchia, vice president for human resources at NU, reported that, "The Benny Card helped us enhance the value of FSAs with employees by eliminating a key obstacle to FSA participation -- the paperwork. We expect that more of our employees will enroll in FSAs and increase their contributions in the years ahead because of the Benny Card. We look forward to working with Evolution in exploring uses for the Benny Card beyond FSAs."
The immediate paperwork savings and ease of administering an FSA program with the Benny Card are clearly attractive to TPAs (third party administrators), employers and employees," explained Jennings Hart, senior vice president at Acordia National, W. VA, and administrator of NUs FSA. We believe that use of the Benny Card program can lead to significant increases in employee participation in FSAs," he added.
Evolution has teamed up with leading national companies with extensive experience in electronic technology to build and operate the Benny Card program. Among the partners involved in delivering Card services are:
 MasterCard International (Purchase, N.Y.), provider of the prepaid card, accepted at any health care provider that accepts MasterCard;
 WildCard Systems (Sunrise, Fla.), which developed the payment application and is the payment processor;
 BANKFIRST (Sioux Falls, S.D.), the MasterCard bank sponsor that provides the banking infrastructure necessary to run the Benny Card program;
 Leading pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), including AdvancePCS, Merck-Medco, and Express Scripts, who participate in both the Benny Card marketing and processing.

About Evolution Health
Evolution Health has been funded principally by Patricelli and by investment from Womens Health USA, another Patricelli company. Its senior management team is made up of health care and benefits veterans averaging more than 20 years in the industry, many of whom worked with Patricelli at Value Health, Womens Health and other entrepreneurial successes. More product information can be found by visiting www.EvolutionBenefits.com.

About MasterCard International
MasterCard International has a comprehensive portfolio of well-known, widely accepted payment brands including MasterCard®, Cirrus® and Maestro®. More than 1.7 billion MasterCard, Cirrus and Maestro logos are present on credit, charge and debit cards in circulation today. An association comprised of more than 20,000 member financial institutions, MasterCard serves consumers and businesses, both large and small, in 210 countries and territories. MasterCard is a leader in quality and innovation, offering a wide range of payment solutions in the virtual and traditional worlds. MasterCards award-winning Priceless® advertising campaign is now seen in 80 countries and in 40 languages, giving the MasterCard brand a truly global reach and scope. With more than 22 million acceptance locations, no card is accepted in more places and by more merchants than the MasterCard card. At Sept. 30, 2001, gross dollar volume exceeded US$704 billion. MasterCard can be reached through its World Wide Web site at www.mastercard.com.