SAS Awarded U.S. Health Care Financing Admin. Contract

SAS Institute, a market leader in integrated data warehousing and decision support, announces its partnership in an approximately $20 million one-year (plus four option years) contract awarded by the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). DynCorp's Health Information Technology Services business unit acted as the Prime Contractor for securing this project. SAS's Public Sector Group is a subcontracting partner with DynCorp. The SAS solution will help provide HCFA with high-tech computing capabilities by creating a regional data warehouse for Medicare for Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The SAS technology will improve HCFA's effectiveness in identifying potentially fraudulent, wasteful and abusive Medicare billing practices.

"We are proud to be part of this winning team of contractors," said Jeff Babcock, vice president of SAS's Public Sector Group. "SAS Institute's data mining solution will play a key role in delivering this system and has already been instrumental in helping other government partners see a tremendous return on investment."

Other subcontractors on the contract include MEDSTAT, Optenberg & Associates, Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute, KePRO and LifeCare Management Partners.

"This project is a major breakthrough for the health care program in this country," exclaims Dr. Scott Optenberg, president of Optenberg & Associates. "Being able to detect wasteful billing through data mining practices will guarantee better health coverage for patients who truly need it." The project will make use of the Third-Party Payer Subrogation and Coordination of Benefits Evaluation System (CBES), developed by Optenberg & Associates. CBES is written entirely using SAS technology.

About SAS Institute

SAS Institute, the world's largest privately held software company, is a leader in decision support and data warehousing, providing integrated enterprise information-delivery and e-business solutions. Founded in 1976, the Institute markets packaged business solutions for vertical industry and departmental applications, as well as an integrated suite of software tools and consulting services. These allow companies to transform the wide variety of data within their organizations into information that business users and researchers need to make better decisions. SAS software and services are used at more than 33,000 business, government, and university sites in over 115 countries. SAS Institute's 1999 revenues totaled $1.02 billion. Please visit SAS Institute's Website: www.sas.com.