Blog Post

Connecting your Benefit Enrollment Software to your Insurance Carriers

Published on

Dec 10

Sheri Blaho

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Without the right tools, communicating benefits enrollment data and life-change events to carriers is often manual and time-consuming. Each carrier has its own change forms and systems, and even after you’ve submitted a change, you often need to follow up to make sure benefits changes have occurred on the intended effective date.

EverythingBenefits Carrier Connectivity solution changes all that, allowing you to automate your communications with carriers and keep track of changes in real-time. Benefits carrier connections that were once only an option for large employers are now possible for organizations of any size.

Here are five ways carrier connectivity can transform your benefits administration activities:

1. Powerful and Timely Carrier Communications

At its core, Carrier Connectivity allows you to automate the delivery of benefit enrollment data and qualifying event changes directly to insurance carriers. Instead of following a manual format and process for submitting information, information is delivered automatically from your HR systems to the carrier. You no longer need to fill out separate forms, send emails, or upload documents to carrier sites.

Depending on your organization’s size and implementation timeline, you can set up carrier benefit feeds using either an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) connection, API integration, or customizable Smart Forms. Once you’re fully set up, you will enjoy a direct line of communication to your network of providers offering medical, dental, vision, life, disability benefits, and more.

2. Streamlines open enrollment

As the single busiest event of the benefits year, open enrollment is a time when employees are making changes to their benefit plan selections and coverage levels. Benefits premiums are also changing at this time, which means you need to pay equal attention to employee elections and changes in carrier billing.

Carrier connectivity increases the efficiency of your open enrollment process by allowing you to get open enrollment changes to carriers without manual intervention. The HR data provided by an employee during open enrollment is automatically communicated from your HRIS or benefits system, adapted into your carriers’ required format, and securely transferred to the carrier. The best part? While all of that is happening, you have more time to spend supporting employees and helping them navigate the open enrollment process.

3. Facilitates faster changes with carriers

Carrier connectivity reduces the delays associated with communicating employee benefits changes manually. Because changes are transferred directly to carriers through EDI, API, or Smart Forms, carriers receive information quicker.

Also, the first-time setup of Carrier Connectivity takes less time than traditional carrier connections. Before modern technology made the process more efficient, it used to take months to develop feeds with carriers. Today, you can have our Carrier Connectivity solution up and running in a matter of weeks.

4. Improves benefits change tracking

Our Carrier Connectivity solution allows you to say goodbye to the benefits change paper trail. The platform monitors all transmissions to carriers and stays on top of your data. At the same time, you can access every communication and see what was sent to which carrier and when. The solution can also be configured to notify you when changes are made, when data is communicated to carriers, and when there are items requiring your attention.

5. Enhances benefits reporting

Having reliable reporting capability allows you to develop a clearer picture of your benefits program and understand the employee changes happening year-round. Carrier Connectivity offers intuitive dashboards and powerful reporting to help you take a top-line view of benefit adds, changes, and terminations, as well as drill down to see what’s happening at the individual employee level. Carrier Connectivity reporting enables you to do the following:

  •       Review and compare previous carrier communications
  •       Monitor historical trends
  •       Understand how your employees are leveraging the benefits you provide

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