FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Thursday, November 2, 2000	Bernard LaPine (919) 281-7186

Optimum Choice of the Carolinas, Inc. Announces No-Referral HMO Product

Research Triangle Park, NC- Optimum Choice of the Carolinas, Inc. (OCCI), a health plan of Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Inc. (MAMSI) (NYSE: MME), announced today a new product line to bring additional choice and flexibility to employer groups and their employees. The new product line, OCCI Direct, will allow HMO members to access medical care from any participating physician. With OCCI Direct, no referral is needed to see a participating specialist.

"We are pleased to bring this exciting new product to North Carolina employers," said Jim Bendel, Regional Vice President. "OCCI Direct enables North Carolina employers to offer their employees the benefits of cost-effective health care coverage coupled with the freedom to see any participating physician."

OCCI Direct is a non-traditional HMO product. Like all HMO products, OCCI Direct members will have a primary care physician and will have coverage for preventive health care services such as immunizations for children, mammograms, colorectal cancer screenings. OCCI Direct members will also have health promotion programs such as disease management available to them. But, unlike a traditional HMO, an OCCI Direct member may elect to go directly to a participating specialist without first seeing his or her primary care physician.

"This new product will be welcome news for physicians too," noted C. Franklin Church, M.D., Medical Director. "Primary care physicians will no longer have the paperwork associated with the traditional HMO referral system."

OCCI is headquartered in Research Triangle, North Carolina. Its parent company, MAMSI, is one of the mid-Atlantic region's largest managed care companies. MAMSI's health plans include M.D. IPA, MAMSI Life and Health Insurance Company (MLH), Optimum Choice, Inc. (OCI), and Alliance PPO, LLC. (Alliance). MAMSI health plans cover about 1.8 million lives. MAMSI's Internet address is www.mamsi.com.

# # #

Note 1: Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: All forward-looking information or statements contained in this release are based on management's current knowledge of factors, all with inherent risks and uncertainties, affecting MAMSI's business. MAMSI's actual results may differ materially if these assumptions prove invalid. Significant risk factors, while not all-inclusive, are: the possibility of increasing price competition in the Company's marketplace; the possibility of state or Federal budget mandates that reduce premium levels; the possibility of increased medical expenses due to increased utilization, inflation or legislative mandates; and the possibility that the Company is not able to expand its Service Area as planned. Investors should review other risks and uncertainties contained in Company documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.