Tomorrow morning Mitchell Medical will announce it has acquired the Ingenix medical bill bill review systems business from United HealthGroup. The deal, which has been tightly held, may also include the assets employed in developing state workers comp fee schedules, although that was not clear as of this afternoon.

This marks yet another step in the consolidation of an industry long in need of just such a change.

When the deal is completed, there will be four dominant firms in workers comp bill review; Coventry, Mitchell, Medata and Stratacare. MCMC also provides bill review services but is not an IT vendor.

Ingenix has been challenged of late as it is in the midst of transitioning their customers from the PowerTrak application to IMBR, a switch that reportedly requires quite a bit of effort and resource on the part of current clients. This has led some current users to test the market and look at other vendors, as they might as well see what's out there if they have to go through the hassle of conversion regardless.

No word on who, or what, or where, or how many, and I wouldn't expect much tomorrow.

Stay tuned...