As open enrollment season approaches, the demand for a streamlined, end-to-end customer experience escalates. While employees start to weigh their options, benefit administrators and plan sponsors without an action plan for modernized member enrollments face a tricky road ahead.
Frictionless enrollment hinges on technology and automation enablement on the front and back end; that much is obvious. But successful frictionless enrollment must leverage technology to develop a comprehensive record of the member, along with reducing manual processes, workflows, and data inconsistencies at the organizational level. Streamlined enrollments enhance the quality of member data and create powerful user experiences.
Benefits administrators should consider the following when building the groundwork for frictionless enrollment.
- Develop a cloud strategy.
On-premises infrastructures were once standard for healthcare organizations, but the onset of cloud deployments rapidly became differentiators, offering heightened security, enhanced scaling, and a general decrease in operating costs.
Moving to the cloud affords wide degrees of customization for the enterprise, a stark contrast to on-premises deployments with high overhead and a lack of data nimbleness. Whether building a data and security protocol or storing a library of provider contacts, a cloud-native technology infrastructure is a powerful tool for healthcare payers and administrators.
- Enable real-time processing.
Real-time enrollment processing, enabled via open API connections and cloud-based IT ecosystems, allows members to shop, compare, price, and select their health plans. On the back end, administrators can access member data at scale at a pace far quicker than batch processing allows, creating opportunities for rapid customer engagement and swifter enrollments.
A bogged-down enrollment process can prevent employees from taking full advantage of benefits, leaving unused money and value on the table. Furthermore, a snappy, automated enrollment process enhances overall member experience without sacrificing the detail associated with traditional enrollments.
- Power up the platform.
Considering the evolving employee landscape and nuanced member needs throughout their life, employers require a nimble set of benefits that meet those needs. A positive enrollment experience may help retention in a tight labor market, and instant access to a wide range of benefits via a clean-cut digital platform is a step in the right direction.
Digital enrollment platforms must adapt to meet that challenge to remain compelling and viable. Dated platforms mired in clunky document processing, slow download speeds, and unattractive interfaces can impede organizational access to consumable member information, along with creating a negative first impression.
- Simplify internal data processes.
A range of new challenges arise once real-time enrollment data is accessible. Inconsistent data standards (differences in stored file types, data duplicates, etc.) may lead to processing headwinds, while an excess of low-value manual tasks can exacerbate workflows and flatten productivity levels.
Inconsistencies in member information can quickly turn into a wave of meaningless data that goes nowhere and serves no purpose to advance the employer-employee relationship. Keying in on workflows, developing guidelines for gauging process performance, and automating low-value tasks can keep enrollment fulfillment on track.
- Focus on a valuable member experience.
Employees have the upper hand in today’s competitive labor market. They do not only want a quick and easy enrollment experience, but a consistently positive relationship with their employers. One channel to build that relationship is through a satisfactory benefits platforms and administrator.
Implementing relevant benefits content personalized for each user, along with single sign-on, live chats, conversational AI, and automated reminders for important information, is a helpful tool to strengthen that relationship. Focus should center on creating a digital-banking-like approach, eliminating member challenges before they occur and facilitating a no-hassle experience.
Want more on enrollments? Register for tomorrow’s webinar on Open Enrollment Trends and Predictions for 2023. Can’t attend? Check out the AHIP webinar from May 2022 in which Aite-Novarica participated on the topic of frictionless enrollment alongside executives from Oracle and PwC.
Have a platform or solution we should have on our radar? Please reach out to arrange a briefing at [email protected].