Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), a major Massachusetts health insurer, acquired several health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in the 1990s, but failed to effectively integrate the information systems of the organizations. This resulted in confusing duplicate general ledger systems that led to a $227.4 million loss in 1999 alone.

After state officials appointed a receiver to take control, HPHC began outsourcing claims processing and IT and completely revamped its finance function. By 2000, HPHC had reduced its net loss to $9.7 million, and by the end of 2001 the company was again posting positive financial results, a trend that has continued since. Today HPHC has a new Teradata Warehouse that provides sophisticated analytics and decision support. "Now we have one system and all the sub-ledgers talk to each other automatically," explains Michelle Clayman, HPHC's Assistant Controller. "With all the data in one Teradata system, we can see problems right away."