Bellevue's Edifecs Leads Charge in Health Care Administration Software

Edifecs, a Bellevue-based company on a steep rise in the health care industry, has plans to increase its employment by 50 percent by the end of next year.

The 15-year-old health care information software company holds the largest market share in every product it sells, and has bucked the downward economic trends to grow by more than 50 percent year after year, said chief executive officer Sunny Singh of Kirkland.

He said that Edifecs, which currently employs about 280 people in Bellevue, the Ukraine and India, expects its ranks to grow to 425 by the end of the year.

“There aren’t many companies that can brag about this,” Singh says.

Singh says the company's success is built on a business model that has kept the company on solid ground ever since its founding in 1996.

“We have substance behind us,” Singh says. “We bootstrapped. We have no outside investors and no debt.”

When the economy lagged, Edifecs kept its forward momentum to position itself strongly, Singh says.

“When you have these disruptions, there are opportunities. We became more aggressive, hired more people, built more products,” he says, adding, “of course it doesn’t hurt being in a great industry with big needs and very passionate people.

Singh has been recognized by the business community for his passion and successful execution of it, recently winning the Entrepreneur of the Year award from global assurance company Ernst & Young.

Singh launched Edifecs to supply tools for supply chains, after he had worked for Expeditors International. The company branched into IT solutions for health care companies, including insurance plans and Medicaid providers, to reduce administrative costs, improve efficiency, and ensure compliance with laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Edifecs sells a unified channel framework, with a number of applications underneath. Singh says Edifecs is a leader in HIPAA compliance solutions, and expects soon will hold that position in medical coding compliance as well.

“When we got into the health care industry, we got addicted to it. We took what applied to other industries and said ‘We’re going to bring all of this together to really make a difference,’” he says.

The response has been tremendous, Singh says, as about $500 billion of the nation’s annual $3 trillion health care industry is spent on administration, and the industry is eager to reduce those costs. With huge potential changes on the horizon in the health care industry, Singh says he expects that passion to be fueled into the future.

Edifecs is employee-owned and values creativity and innovation above all, Singh says. Environment and company culture contributed to Edifecs’ decision to locate its headquarters in a large, quiet office complex in north Bellevue, after being originally launched in Issaquah, where Singh lived before moving to Kirkland.

“I believe our people are artists, so I prefer to be away from downtown,” he says. The Bellevue location is quiet and surrounded by trees, in a location where employees can get out and take a walk, for example, Singh says.

Singh, while reserved about talking about his personal life, is clearly proud of Edifecs’ accomplishments here.

“I think we are one of the best-kept secrets in Seattle,” he says.

Singh grew up in India before attending Montana State University, where he earned dual master’s degrees in Computer Science and Engineering.

Edifecs' international presence includes an office in the Ukraine, and a development center in India. The company also sells some of its products overseas through distribution partners, but is planning to directly enter international markets, possibly beginning with Canada and countries in the European Union, Singh says.

To Singh, who says he believes health care will become much more globalized and fundamentally different in the next decade and beyond, expanding internationally is another piece of the whole that hinges on looking big and moving fast to be an industry leader.

“If you provide ... innovative, and transformative solutions to succeed in big industries, you will always be dominant and by a big stretch,” Singh says.