As employers, employees, and brokers rush to submit enrollment and eligibility files before year-end, third party administrators (TPAs) find themselves swamped with entering this data in just a few weeks time. Adding fuel to this fire is that TPAs received this information from thousands of different HR platforms and exported in different formats with no standardization. Time must be spent manually extracting this data accurately and entering it into your benefits administration software.
In reality, this chaos occurs every day throughout the year as third party administrators receive dozens of files each week. As TPAs typically only get paid when an employee is enrolled, mining this data quickly and accurately is of utmost importance. But the answer does not lie in new benefits administration software, especially one custom built for a TPA. There are tools that can work with existing platforms, even custom-built, to automate the process beyond a templated approach.
What could you do with an extra two weeks?
How long do you think this takes you to complete each file? Even if you have a templated approach, you still have to review and import the data, so it is standardized and organized. Say you receive 50 files a week that have to be manually reviewed – spending 15 minutes on each file takes 12.5 hours each week. Over the course of the year, you are spending over 27 days preparing the data and files for reimbursement and substantiation. What if you could reduce that time by two-thirds?
By incorporating software into your existing benefits administration software, you can free up hundreds of hours each year that was spent on manually extracting data. Not only that but imagine the chaos that occurs in December when everyone is sending in claims before year-end. Now picture a system that can take those files and standardize and organize them for you before you import. Imagine processes that are automated beyond a templated approach.
If you find yourself struggling with these tasks each day, then it’s time to stop the chaos and automate your office.
TPA Stream is focused on automating health insurance administration for third-party administrators and revenue cycle managers. For more information about how we can help reduce administrative costs, please visit TPAStream.com.