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| Benefitfocus.com achieves 100% adoption of web based technology within North Carolina Triad region
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| Charleston, SC - April 21, 2005 -One of Benefitfocus.com’s carrier partners has achieved 100 percent adoption of its web-based benefits enrollment technology. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) now serves 100 percent of the large employer groups in the Triad area through eBenefitsNow, its electronic enrollment, billing and data exchange platform.
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| "Within 12 months, we achieved 100 percent adoption for all of our large groups with 100 or more employees," says David Dayton, Regional Sales Director for BCBSNC in the Triad region. "We now have 100 groups with over 90,000 members, all enrolled electronically with eBenefitsNow."
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| That figure is especially impressive considering that global IT analyst Gartner, Inc. concluded in a 2004 report that healthcare payer clients, on average, enjoy less than a 10 percent adoption rate for web-based initiatives. Healthcare payers are now footing the bills for old and new customer service channels, rather than leveraging the web channel to reduce costs or improve customer service.
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| "We see over 70 percent of our carrier clients adopt this software within 24 months, when the national average is less than 10 percent," says Benefitfocus.com President and CEO, Shawn Jenkins. "Our technology works, from the data exchange component to the usability of our 'one-thought-per-screen' user interface."
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| Benefitfocus’ carrier partners focus on high-value transactions, coupled with aggressive promotion, to create dramatic results. Using eBenefitsNow, benefit administrators can make benefit changes for employees and dependents, add new hires, manage COBRA coverage, and change employee classifications. All of these transactions are securely, efficiently and accurately transmitted to Blue Cross and any ancillary carriers the group may offer.
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| "We identified the advantages of electronic
enrollment over paper, such as allowing the employer to take
accountability for accuracy, which improves the ID card system,
billing issues and the timing of entering employee terminations
or new additions into the Blues system," says Dayton. "The
industry standard is that 20 percent of the claims issues are
due to enrollment errors. The cost savings for BCBSNC will
come from fewer people keying in forms manually, and from the
reduced number of rejected claims due to errors."
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| Dayton’s strategy shifted the accountability for adoption away from BCBSNC sales executives and account managers to account service representatives. The service representatives made on-site visits to sit down with the human resources administrators and help them achieve comfort and a willingness to adopt the technology. With 12 groups remaining who were hesitant to adopt eBenefitsNow, BCBSNC and Benefitfocus arranged a meeting with groups who had adopted the technology and were pleased with it. Following this meeting, the remaining 12 groups agreed to sign on.
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| North Carolina needed 150,000 member contracts on the software to realize a return on their investment, which Dayton says is already happening. "BCBSNC isn’t touching paper for any of my customers. We’re really ahead of the wave."
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| Currently Benefitfocus' list of clients insures over 12.5 million members, and the company serves more Blue plans than any other provider. "We have the technology, the willpower and the market adoption plan to get the message out to groups in a way they can consume it. And we help all of our carriers get it into the marketing and sales channel," says Jenkins. "We’ve built technology and services that will work for almost any type of business: construction companies, grocery stores, hotels, etc. Our implementation of both web and kiosks gets the product to the 80 percent of the workforce that doesn’t sit in front of a computer every day."
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About Benefitfocus
Benefitfocus.com, Inc. (Benefitfocus) is a leading provider of benefits administration software and services, offering employees and employers access to all benefits and human resource information securely over the Internet. Linking this data to payroll vendors and benefit providers, Benefitfocus applications seamlessly exchange data, therefore reducing errors and costs associated with traditional paper-based forms. Benefitfocus applications are designed to make companies more efficient, cost-effective, and more focused on delivering actual benefits instead of spending time on undue paperwork.
The company is headquartered in Charleston, SC and has an established client base of over 8,000 corporate employers in all fifty states.
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