TAMPA, Fla.—Argus Dental & Vision Inc., a Florida-based administrator of dental and vision benefits, announced Friday that it has created a wholly owned subsidiary, Excedis Inc., to provide innovative vision and dental solutions and assistance to its Medicare and Medicaid health care partners.

Brian Hauser, a longtime vision industry leader, has been named president of Excedis, which will work to help Argus’ Medicare and Medicaid partners “succeed in improving their HEDIS scores, while simultaneously expanding member access to dental and vision care,” according to last week’s announcement. HEDIS, or health care effectiveness data and information set, is a tool used by more than 90 percent of America's health plans to measure performance on care and service measures.

On the vision side, Excedis will partner with health care plans and ACO clients to support a plan’s diabetic membership in receiving important dilated retinal exams, closing care gaps, thereby closing HEDIS gaps and achieving higher STAR ratings, according to the announcement.

Hauser has more than 15 years of leadership experience, spending 10 years with Transitions Optical, the announcement noted. As a general manager at Transitions, Hauser was responsible for the company’s North America region and an organization of 400 people in sales, marketing, finance and operations. More recently he was a general manager and vice president of operations for Infiniti Labs, a privately held toxicology lab in Tampa, as well as a senior partner with Visibility Management.

Nicholas Kavouklis, DMD, a founder and chief executive office of Argus, said he believes HEDIS measurements are continuing to “drive improvements to how health care is delivered, measured and marketed, [yet] many plans don’t have the resources to maximize their efforts in the HEDIS areas of diabetics and dental. We have already been successfully helping existing clients improve their scores, and believe that these efforts could benefit plans through a dedicated service-based company.”

Hauser added, “HEDIS quality metrics will continue to be a critical part of improvements to health care delivery. I am excited for the opportunity to utilize Excedis’ core competencies in vision and dental spaces to assist other plans in improving their HEDIS scores.”