[OmniSYS] plans big Richardson expansion

By Bill Hethcock | Staff Writer
Dallas Business Journal 

 

Dallas-based OmniSYS LLC has about 250 employees, which is twice the number it had in 2007. The company plans to hire about 250 more people in the next two years, with about half of the hiring coming in the next 12 months, said President and CEO Tricia Fringer.

OmniSYS processes Medicare and Medicaid claims for pharmacies and retiree health plans and handles Medicare/Medicaid audit and compliance services and customer loyalty programs. The firm’s customer list for claims processing includes CVS and Walmart pharmacies, and, on the managed care side, Humana and United Healthcare.

Much of the company’s growth is in the Medicare audit and compliance area, Fringer said.

“As a result of health care reform and all the health care fraud and abuse initiatives, the audit activity has increased dramatically over the last 12 months,” she said. “We are handling all of that activity for our customers and responding to the government audits on their behalf.”

Dallas health care lawyer Walt Herring said the processing of Medicare claims for pharmacies will grow as the number of older Americans grows.

“It’s going to be a growing business, no doubt about it, given our demographics,” said Herring, a partner at Bryan Cave LLP.

OmniSYS also is adding employees in the area of prescription adherence, which involves making sure that patients take their medication regularly, Fringer said. The prevalence of diabetes and the demand for diabetes medicines and test strips is increasing OmniSYS’ business, she said.

As a private company, OmniSYS doesn’t disclose its revenue, but Fringer said revenue grew more than 30 percent last year. The firm serves more than 30,000 pharmacies nationwide and processes about 40 million claims annually, Fringer said.

To support the company’s expansion, OmniSYS will open an approximately 50,000-square-foot office in Richardson in October, Fringer said. The Richardson office will house 100 employees initially and grow to about 300 employees over the next 18 to 24 months, she said.

Many of those positions will be call center jobs that pay $10 to $12 an hour, Fringer said. OmniSYS also will hire supervisory employees that earn about $16 an hour, as well as a chief information officer and other senior executives to work out of the Richardson office.

OmniSYS has about 210 employees in an office in Greenville, about 30 miles northeast of Dallas, and those employees will keep their jobs, she said. They will be free to work in the Greenville or Richardson office, as will some of the 50 employees in OmniSYS’ Dallas office, she said.

Fringer has narrowed her search to two sites in Richardson, but she declined to say where they are because negotiations are under way.

OmniSYS was started about 25 years ago, and Dallas private equity firm CIC Partners bought a majority interest in 2007, said Drew Johnson, managing partner of CIC Partners. CIC recruited Fringer to run the company the next year.

OmniSYS’ expertise in the complicated area of Medicare claims processing and the firm’s technology attracted CIC, Johnson said. OmniSYS now processes 50 percent of all Medicare claims for the pharmacy market, he said.

“OmniSYS had what we believed to be the deepest domain expertise in processing medical benefit claims for pharmacies,” he said. “We looked at it and said ‘these guys are the best at processing these on the planet. They’re doing it better, cheaper, faster.’”

Johnson said the rapidly increasing number of diabetic patients — many of whom are Medicare eligible ­— and the government’s increased scrutiny of Medicare and Medicaid payments are driving OmniSYS’ growth.

About 26 million people in the United States, or 8.3 percent of the population, have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. About 2 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year.