In a huge boost to FSA-HRA-HSAs, Evolution Benefit’s popular “Benny” card was selected by NASCO, a national accounts system for Blues plans which serves 10 million covered lives in 1,500 large state and local accounts, individual and small group accounts, national accounts, labor accounts, and the entire Federal Employee Program (FEP). It may be the biggest CDH card contract in history.

Things were already going well for the Blues: The Evolution announcement came in just hours before the Blues announce the launching of their own bank powered by Fiserv technology, another major advance for CDH accounts (coverage to follow soon).

Evolution is an innovative Connecticut company headed by industry sage Robert Patricelli, former head of CIGNA Healthcare and founder of Value Health and other successful national solutions.    The firm is not always visible among all the news coverage of bank cards and gee-whiz “one-card” products, but it has been quietly building steam. It now powers the CDH card programs of more than 140 managed care and administrative services organizations and covers more than 4,100 employers, including 50 of the nation’s top-ranked Fortune and Forbes companies.

“Offering our Plans the Benny™ Prepaid Benefits Card program with its robust technology and ability to achieve high auto-substantiation rates for customers was the next logical step in making it easy for members to manage the multiple accounts that our consumer-directed healthcare program offers,” said Darin McDonald, NASCO Vice President and CIO.

In 2003, NASCO addressed the growing need for its Blue Plan customers to offer a robust consumer-directed healthcare (CDHC) solution for their clients by launching the Consumer’s Choice product. It offers flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health reimbursement accounts (HRAs), and health savings accounts (HSAs) on a robust defined care platform. “Having the benefits card will make life easier for our Plans and their customers by automatically drawing payment from the appropriate account and reducing the need to submit paper receipts,” adds Mike Price, NASCO Director of eBusiness.

“With consumers taking responsibility for managing their own healthcare and related expenses, NASCO's single system solution for Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans stands out as the logical choice for simplifying the process,” Patricelli said. “Card technology will enhance what these Plans can offer the consumer by taking the complexity out of managing multiple accounts in a consumer directed offering. We are proud that our card technology was the preferred choice for NASCO, a leading edge technology services company with a superb reputation."

Blue Plans’ prepaid benefits cards powered by Evolution Benefits technology will be available for members in the spring of 2007. Cards can be customized with each Plan’s private label.