PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brightree and Homecare Collection Service Announce Alliance

Partnership delivers 21st Century Patient Billing Outsourcing for
Home Medical Equipment (HME) and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Providers

Duluth, GA and Akron, OH – September 7, 2006 -- Brightree Inc. and Homecare Collection Service (HCS) announced that they have formed a strategic alliance to deliver 21st Century patient billing services to Home Medical Equipment (HME) and Durable Medical Equipment (DME) providers. The partnership provides an innovative way for HME/DME providers to maximize reimbursements from patients and increase profitability and efficiency.

“Many providers struggle to manage the patient billing process themselves, leading to high uncollectible rates.” said Dave Cormack, Brightree President & CEO. “Using our Internet-hosted platform and a best-of-breed patient reimbursement specialist like HCS makes it possible to deliver exactly what a HME/DME owner is looking for -- painless recovery of a high percentage of their patient receivables.”

Patient billing is a small portion of the reimbursement picture but increasingly tighter margins are dictating that providers recover every dollar they are entitled to. “Since patient billing represents only 8 to12 percent of total revenues but requires a lot of manual effort, typical recovery rates are only 25 to 50 percent,” said Dave Bargmann, General Manager, HCS. “With our specialized, focused efforts we routinely recover 60 to 90 percent. And using Brightree makes everything we do faster for us and easier for our clients.”

The benefits of using Brightree and HCS together can often be immediate and dramatic. “The impact of HCS’s efforts was noticeable immediately. Within one week, our collections from patients increased 100%.” said Kevin Godwin, Vice President, Extrakare in Norcross, GA. In addition to these higher collection rates, providers can also re-allocate up to 25% of their staff’s time, which had previously been consumed by this labor-intensive process.

The Brightree platform provides a unique environment which allows HCS to act as a true extension of the provider’s staff. HCS performs the patient billing function far more efficiently than the provider could. Since everyone works on the same system, providers can monitor the progress of billing and recovery processes in real-time via the Brightree solution. This revolutionary approach also allows providers’ staff to coordinate their patient collection activities.

"HCS has become an integral part of our patient billing and collection processes” says Marlen Messer, Administrator at Low Country Home Oxygen in South Carolina. “In-office collection is an expensive and time consuming process. In today’s world of reduced insurance reimbursement, HCS offers an affordable solution for the collection of monies that every provider needs to remain viable. The fact that HCS uses Brightree makes monitoring account status simple as well as up to date in a real time environment," added Messer.

Outsourcing patient billing with Brightree is very simple and easy to accomplish. “HCS was able to begin the collection process the day after we signed the contract since they are able to use our Brightree system to process invoices and statements.” added Godwin.

For more information on this service, visit http://www.brightree.com/services/patient_billing_service.asp

About Brightree

Brightree Inc. is headquartered in Duluth, GA and delivers an integrated suite of online Internet-based solutions to Home Medical Equipment (HME) providers. These unique solutions follow the natural HME/DME workflow to automate and improve how HMEs manage their business. Brightree is the fastest growing provider of HME/DME business management solutions. Brightree customers process over 2.4 million claims annually totaling over $1 billion. The company is adding a new customer nearly every business day. Brightree is the only solution of its type endorsed by the 2,200+ member VGM service organization. For more information, please visit www.brightree.com or call 1.888.598.7797 ext. 5. Brightree’s address is 2763 Meadow Church Road, Suite 205, Duluth, GA 30097.

Contact: Mark Blount (mblount@brightree.com)
Brightree Inc.
Toll Free 1.888.598.7797 x444
Fax 678.775.7294

About Homecare Collection Service (HCS)

Homecare Collection Service, headquartered in Akron, OH, offers the premier HME/DME patient collections service in the industry. Founded in 2003, HCS is currently serving almost 100 industry clients and is rapidly expanding. HCS is directed by Lisa Bargmann, a nationally recognized expert who has been in the industry for 18 years. HCS employs skilled industry specialists to provide a turnkey solution for patient billing, from the time insurance EOB’s identify patient responsibility through full collections. For more information, visit http://www.homecarecollection.com or call 1.330.237.0063. HCS’s address is 453 South High Street, Suite 301, Akron, OH 44311.