UnitedHealthcare and Gateway EDI Enable Health Care Professionals to Have a Charitable Impact

For the more than 2,500 participants descending on New Orleans as part of the Medical Group Management Association’s (MGMA) 2010 Annual Conference Oct. 24-27, the event is more than just an opportunity to learn and network. Through the joint efforts of two vendors at the show, conference attendees can give back to the local community.

UnitedHealthcare (Booth #735) is engaging its staff and conference attendees to cheer up children in the hospital as part of its work with Project Sunshine, a nonprofit organization that provides free educational, recreational and social programs to children facing medical challenges. Asking participants to draw color and write a Sunny Gram for children who cannot celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving at home, UnitedHealthcare plans to deliver 3,000 such cards to hospitals across the country, including the New Orleans Children’s Hospital.

"Working with people in need is at the heart of what we do. This activity with Project Sunshine offers an incredible opportunity for conference participants to share their creative talents to bring a smile to a child,” says Michael O'Boyle, president, UnitedHealth Networks.

The UnitedHealthcare booth also includes information for conference participants on the UnitedHealthcare Children’s Foundation and VolunteerMatch to support physician practices that are looking for unique philanthropic engagements within the medical community and to educate the public about volunteering and its associated benefits.

"Project Sunshine is fortunate to have the compassionate commitment of UnitedHealthcare’s outstanding volunteers who bring programs and activities to pediatric patients and their families across the U.S.,” said Beatrice Kernan, executive director, Project Sunshine. "The inspired and individualized holiday cards – Sunny Grams – made at this Conference will help revive flagging spirits of thousands of brave, young patients and let them know the outside world cares.”

At the Gateway EDI booth (Booth #1017), attendees can help raise funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Since 2007, Gateway EDI has raised more than $16,000 for regional affiliates of Susan G Komen for the Cure by donating $5 for each MGMA attendee who stops by its booth and "swipes” their attendee card.

"’Swipe for the Cure’ is an initiative we created to focus on providers’ desire to support causes in health care, rather than go home with a suitcase full of stress balls. It’s an opportunity for attendees to make a difference for this important charity,” said Michelle Llewellyn, director of marketing for Gateway EDI.

About Gateway EDI
Gateway EDI takes responsibility for its clients’ revenue cycle from patient to payment. The company’s powerful software tools combined with its experienced customer service team, offer the industry the best solutions for revenue cycle management.

Year after year, Gateway EDI delivers high performance and operational excellence to their customers. Ninety-eight percent of all customer calls are answered in person with a 92 percent instant resolution. Based in St. Louis, the privately-held firm maintains full accreditation by the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission, an industry endorsement for excellence in industry standards and best practices. For more information, visit www.gatewayedi.com.

About Project Sunshine
Project Sunshine is a nonprofit organization that provides free educational, recreational, and social programs to children facing medical challenges and their families. Project Sunshine empowers a dynamic and dedicated corps of over 10,000 volunteers to bring programming to over 60,000 children facing medical challenges and their families in 100 major cities across the United States and in five international satellite sites. Project Sunshine volunteers spread sunshine, restoring a crucial sense of normalcy to the pediatric healthcare environment.

About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare provides a full spectrum of consumer-oriented health benefits plans and services to individuals, public sector employers and businesses of all sizes, including more than half of the Fortune 100 companies. The company organizes access to quality, affordable health care services on behalf of approximately 25 million individual consumers, contracting directly with more than 600,000 physicians and care professionals and 5,000 hospitals to offer them broad, convenient access to services nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.

About UnitedHealthcare Children’s Foundation
The UnitedHealthcare Children's Foundation is a non-profit Section 501(c)(3) charity funded by contributions from UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare and its employees, as well as the generosity of individuals and corporations. The Foundation provides financial assistance toward a family's share of the cost of a child’s medical services to facilitate access to health-related services that have the potential to significantly enhance either the clinical condition or the quality of life and that are not fully covered by the available commercial health benefit plan.

About VolunteerMatch
VolunteerMatch is a national nonprofit dedicated to strengthening communities by helping good people and good causes to connect. Its award-winning online service, www.VolunteerMatch.org, makes it easy to find a way to make a difference by location, expertise, or availability, and is the #1 ranking for "volunteer” on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. In addition to its public Web site, VolunteerMatch provides many of the nation's most recognized businesses, campuses and organizations with Web-based solutions to facilitate and track their volunteer engagement. The VolunteerMatch network regularly welcomes more than 190,000 visitors each week and has become the preferred volunteer recruiting service for tens of thousands of participating nonprofits.