Healthcare Consumers Re-Energized With Free Comparison Shopping Tools: Healthia Changes Name to Vimo, Launches New Personalized Shopping Features, and Acquires Cordova Advisors

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Solidifying its leadership position as the foremost resource for consumers and small businesses shopping for healthcare, Healthia today announced that it changed its name to Vimo ( http://www.vimo.com/ ) and acquired privately held Cordova Advisors, LLC. Additionally, the company launched MyVimo ( http://www.vimo.com/myvimo ), a suite of personalization features for healthcare shopping. All Vimo services are offered to healthcare consumers free of charge.

With its new name, acquisition, and launch of MyVimo, Vimo is effectively the world's only integrated, personalized health shopping portal that gives consumers the answers they need on the Internet -- for free.

"Our new name, Vimo, communicates vim, vigor, energy and enthusiasm -- collectively characterizing our commitment to empowering consumers in their quest for reliable healthcare information," states Chini Krishnan, co-founder and CEO of Vimo. "Vimo thinks shopping for healthcare should be a lot more like shopping for other large purchases. You should be able to compare price, quality and service levels before making a medical purchase. Vimo makes these possible, offering consumers real comparisons, independent benchmarks and user reviews that help them weigh their options and find the best value."

In addition to providing comparison shopping for health insurance, doctors and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Vimo brings together a variety of private and public data sources so that shoppers can find a physician, identify a health insurance plan through brokers in their local area, and compare hospital prices for medical procedures. Vimo users can also read and post reviews about any of the services or products available.

Further enhancing access to personalized information, MyVimo automatically updates users on any status changes of their favorite doctors, including any new reviews, licenses, malpractice awards or disciplinary actions. With MyVimo, users can even look up what health insurance a given doctor accepts, without browsing through dozens of insurance Web site listings.

Later in 2006, MyVimo will send subscribers updates about price changes of any specific medical procedure or healthcare plan that the user has chosen to track. Users can begin tracking doctors' status changes by signing up for MyVimo at http://www.vimo.com/myvimo .

Vimo also announced today the purchase of privately held Cordova Advisors which develops technology that allows consumers and businesses to make economically rational healthcare decisions regarding current and future healthcare needs. Cordova's patent-pending, dynamic financial model can be used by employers or individual consumers to "test drive" an HSA, compare health plans or conduct the type of long-term financial asset allocation that consumers use to manage their retirement accounts.

"Monte Carlo" type simulations are used to make actuarially credible health spending projections on an individual and company-wide basis. The overall goal is to enable each person to select -- based upon unique needs, preferences and life-stage -- a financially optimal health plan.

Thomas A. Cochrane, CFA founded Cordova Advisors and with the acquisition becomes the newly named Vice President of Partner Relations at Vimo.

"When HSA legislation was enacted in 2004, I viewed this introduction as a critical step in the advancement of consumer driven healthcare (CDH)," says Cochrane. "But while HSAs and CDH have the potential to open up a whole new world in healthcare, they present complex decision-making challenges. Cordova's goal has always been to simplify the processes and provide powerful decision support technology that has been applied effectively in areas outside the healthcare arena."

Cochrane also points out that Vimo is the ideal vehicle for the Cordova technology. "Vimo's founding team is dedicated to progressive change in healthcare through empowering the individual consumer," he continues. "A free and open comparison shopping portal is the best way to get the Cordova tools to as many people as possible. HSAs and CDH have vast potential, but they will not take hold unless people have tools and information that provide the basis for understanding and meaningful action."

Select features of Cordova Advisors' technology will be incorporated into Vimo features as early as December 2006. Current Cordova offerings and prototypes can be viewed here:

http://www.hsasimulator.com/ / http://www.cordovaadvisors.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&i d=20&Itemid=50

"The combination of Cordova's Web-based analysis technology with Vimo's comparison shopping tools creates an integrated healthcare shopping solution that is unlike anything else on the market," adds Cochrane. "Now, Vimo users can not only shop for health plans or search for a physician, they can also create a financial plan for their health future."

Krishnan says that Vimo stands on the forefront of a revolution in healthcare. "We see a future where free markets provide every American with affordable access to health services," he says. "Transparent information enables free markets, and Web 2.0 technologies allow us to simplify the healthcare maze for the healthcare consumer. Together, we believe this can create a revolution in our system of healthcare delivery. As we march forward, you can absolutely expect us to widen the scope and nature of the products and services we carry as well as the ways we allow users to research and purchase them."

About Vimo

Vimo (formerly Healthia) was founded in 2005 to provide integrated comparison-shopping information to give consumers more control over their healthcare choices and spending. Vimo's founders are Chini Krishnan, co- founder of data security technology company Valicert (which merged with Tumbleweed Communications and Shankar Srinivasan, a member of the founding team of Healtheon, now merged into WebMD Health. Vimo is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners (http://www.bvp.com/) and Trinity Ventures (http://www.trinityventures.com/). Vimo is located at 2513 East Charleston Road, Suite 100A, Mountain View, CA 94043.

Insurance brokers or banks interested in partnering with Vimo can visit http://www.vimo.com/brokercenter or http://www.vimo.com/bankcenter. For employment or partnership opportunities, e-mail careers@vimo.com or partners@vimo.com. For more information, call Vimo toll-free at 877-296-3805 or visit http://www.vimo.com/ .

  CONTACT:  CPR Strategic Communications
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