Artifact Details

Title

Houtz, Jim (James H.) oral history

Catalog Number

102702338

Type

Document

Description

Jim Houtz describes his personal and educational background and his career in sales with Burroughs and IBM as a young man leading up to his founding of CyCare Systems, Inc. (originally called Computer Consulting Service) in 1967. He describes the innovative methods he used to fund his start-up business and how he reached the decision to switch from a general purpose service bureau to specializing in medical group practices. This led to expertise in processing insurance claims which Houtz built into a large company with offices in 12 to 14 cities in the U.S. and Canada. He eventually formed a clearinghouse, which he called CyData, which processed not only insurance claims for CyCare but also for a number of their competitors and ultimately was processing approximately 33% of all medical insurance claims in the United States. He talks about the benefits of his membership in ADAPSO and in an ADAPSO-sponsored Presidents’ Roundtables. He describes the acquisitions CyCare did to build the company and then discusses his venture investing and other activities after selling the company to HBOC in 1996.

Date

2010-05-18

Contributor

Grad, Burt, Interviewer
Houtz, James H. (Jim), Interviewee
Johnson, Luanne, Editor

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Jeffries & Co. 10th Floor, 520 Madison Avenue, New York

Extent

80 p.

Format

PDF

Category

Transcription

Subject

Houtz, Jim; Association of Data Processing Service Organizations (ADAPSO); Broadview Associates; Burgmeier, Dick; Burroughs; Computer Consulting Service; CyCare Systems; CyData; Ertl Manufacturing; Goldstein, Bernie; Grodahl, George; Honeywell minicomputers; HBOC; IBM 6400 (Calculator); IBM 360 (Computer system); LabBook; McKesson; Mintz, Gil

Collection Title

Oral history collection

Credit

Software Industry Special Interest Group

Lot Number

X5653.2010