When I first started in the benefits consulting world almost 25 years ago benefit administration looked a lot different. Back then, all the health insurance carriers required you to fax in paper applications. The process was:
- Print out a stack of paperwork including plan designs and blank applications
- Have employees complete all the paperwork and turn it in
- Review the applications for missing items
- Request missing items and wait for the responses
- Fill in the missing information on the applications
- Fax in the paperwork to the carriers
- Call the carriers a week later to verify if paperwork had been
It was a long and tedious process. Very large employers used internal systems so they did not have this issue. Then the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) happened and made sweeping changes in the healthcare market. Due to increased costs because of the act, carriers started reducing commissions of brokers but brokers were still doing the same amount of work if not more due to the act and new compliance notices. The ACA also built on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and new rules were imposed on members’ identifiable information. Paper forms created compliance issues because of the privacy requirements and the exposure they lended themselves to.
Online platforms became the solution and started popping up. One system became very popular in the small business industry, Zenefits. This was a software company who was providing their BenAdmin system to employers for no cost as long as they were the broker on the Employee Benefits. This was a great way for employers to save time and the hassle of having to deal with paper applications. But in reality, there was no real connectivity to anywhere in the background. You had Zenefits employees manually processing enrollments and the software was more of just a user front end with mice running in a wheel in the background.
Plus, when you turn over your benefits and insurance to software people, you no longer are getting that experienced insurance consultant to help you navigate the ins and out of the industry. So, the Zenefits model failed quickly and up popped more software companies including payroll companies that were now trying to get in on the action. I really love the idea of payroll integrated with the BenAdmin system. It makes doing your ACA reporting so much less of a hassle and it also saves your HR department some time with not having to enter data in 2 systems. However, a company like ADP are experts in Payroll, not in Insurance. When it comes to those hairy claims that need to be unraveled, you are not going to get much assistance for you and your employees.
Then other BenAdmin systems such as Ease, Employee Navigator, Bamboo HR and some others started making their way into the industry. Initially they were just a program to house all employees, their benefit elections and the rates. They were just platforms that brokers utilized to assist with the benefit administration. As the years passed, they have evolved into a true BenAdmin system. They now do open enrollment for the employees, payroll integration, onboarding, data feeds (which are direct enrollment changes to the carriers), attendance tracking, compliance document storage, employee management, housing of performance reviews and even more. If you want to maximize the utilization of your benefits administration system then I would recommend partnering with a health insurance broker who can make sure the platform is customized to your benefits and provide your employees with a complete understanding of your benefit offering.
Not all employers are thrilled about these platforms as some still have employees that are not computer savvy. Unfortunately, the way of the world is forcing everyone into these electronic platforms for all sorts of things like payroll and direct deposit, onboarding, benefit enrollment, all the compliance documents that need to be distributed to employees, virtual care, retirement benefits and more. Think of other things such as self-serve kiosks at your grocery store, fast food restaurants, and more.
Everything is going paperless. It is very convenient to be able to access all of your benefit information on an app on your phone. We are becoming a world tied to our phones and using them for your health insurance benefits is no exception.
How you can drive engagement in your benefit administration platform?
-Give employees self-service tools to help the select a plan if multiple offerings
-Make it clear and concise
-Have examples
-Have the option to talk to a person about their options
-Send out reminders through the year on different benefits
In conclusion, evaluate different BenAdmin systems with your benefits broker and make sure it is right for you and your employees. Some will have more bells and whistles than others but the most important is for it to be user friendly, carrier friendly and easy transferrable.
Jennifer Geesey
VP of Benefits Gunn-Mowery, LLC
jgeesey@gunnmowery.com
717-718-5687
