East Bay Business Times
March 31, 2000

On the Move

New PersonalMD.com CEO Tom Levin says he came to the Pleasanton health care information technology company from WellPoint Health Networks Inc. because he likes "the excitement of building something new."

Levin, a veteran health care executive, built Thousand Oaks-based WellPoint's start-up consumer managed care businesses outside of California from $30 million in revenues per year to $350 million a year between 1996 and 1999.

Levin hopes to achieve similar growth at PersonalMD.com, a company that's only two years old. "At the end of five years, with just the technology we have now, I would expect that we would have 20 million members and close to $100 million in revenues," he said.

Levin succeeds PersonalMD.com founder Suresh Challa as CEO. Challa will move to the chairman post to provide leadership in technology product development and direct the company's international business.

PersonalMD.com is an interactive Web site aimed at meeting the needs of health plans, managed care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, employer groups and others in the health care field.

One of its featured services is PersonalMD-ER, an online repository of vital health information, including drug allergies, current medications and health conditions. The information is stored in a confidential, secure file at PersonalMD.com and members are sent personalized emergency cards which they are to carry at all times. In an emergency, the information can be made available to emergency room physicians via the Web or fax.

PersonalMD.com's technical expertise is one of the company's strongest points, Levin said. "PersonalMD.com has established a team of software engineers of unparalleled excellence in the health care category," he said. Two-thirds of its employees are software engineers and technicians, he said.

Before working at WellPoint, where he was senior vice president of its consumer managed care business, Levin was CEO for Rocky Mountain Health Care and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Plans of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. He also served as chairman and CEO of Millennium health care, which provided health benefits management to more than 300 hospital systems, and built and managed a software system designed to support clinical and administrative management of health care provider organizations.

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Press Contact for Media:
For PersonalMD.com
Susan Cossette
Director of Corporate Communications
Susan@PersonalMD.com
925-460-9080, Ext. 17