Firstsource Solutions acquired MedAssist Holding Inc for $330 million

New Delhi: Among India's top outsourced business services providers, Firstsource Solutions Ltd (formerly ICICI OneSource), has bought industry MedAssist Holding Inc, provider of revenue cycle management in the US healthcare, for $330 million in an all-cash deal.

Firstsource, which provides business process management services to global leaders in banking and financial services, telecom and media and healthcare, is ranked among India's top 5 BPO companies by NASSCOM for the year 2005-06.

The acquisition provides Firstsource an entry into the provider segment of the US healthcare BPO industry and presents significant synergies to Firstsource, which already has a strong presence in the US healthcare BPO segment in the 'payor' or insurance company segment, will now also enter the 'provider' or the hospitals end of healthcare BPO services.

Ananda Mukerji, managing director and CEO, Firstsource, said, "The healthcare space in the US is a tremendously attractive market from a BPO perspective. Firstsource already has a significant presence in the payor side of the market. This acquisition gives us access to the equally large provider side. MedAssist has an attractive portfolio of service offerings, an excellent customer base and a strong management team. We see significant opportunity to grow our business in the segment by cross-selling Firstsource's services to MedAssist's customers."

Firstsource entered the health-care outsourcing segment in 2005 with the acquisition of Chennai-based Rev IT Systems and its Michigan-based subsidiary Sherpa Business Solutions and earlier in January this year, it acquired US health-care claims outsourcer BPM for a reported $40 million.

In the insurance segment, Firstsource provides processing services to US-based health insurers, and has been looking to expand its business by managing the administration, including cost management tasks, of US-based hospitals.