Many voluntary benefits insurers struggle to manage their billing process because of poor practices related to member eligibility data. Many still send an employer group a bill and let the employer group determine what to pay based on who the employer indicates is enrolled.
That leads to manual work by employers and insurers that wastes time and ultimately leads to inaccurate billing. Voluntary insurers that embrace modern technology can not only overcome that manual work but improve the accuracy of every employer group’s bill.
Modern billing software can help. Here are three ways to better manage voluntary benefits insurance billing using software:
Self-administered Billing
For some less frequently used voluntary products, there’s no need to maintain detailed member eligibility records. That billing overhead eats away at profits and provides little additional value. Instead, insurers can rely on employers to deliver headcounts and calculate invoices based on employer-provided data.
For example, Certifi’s self-administered billing feature allows an employer to enter any combination of headcount, total volume, and an adjusted rate amount to calculate the amount due for a particular billing period. That feature can default the current month numbers to those used in the prior month for easier data entry while also allowing an employer to enter retroactive credit or debit adjustments to previous periods, per the plan terms.
Best For: Self-administered billing is perfect for voluntary products that don’t require an insurer to maintain detailed eligibility information but instead rely on an employer to report product headcount.
Managing Partial Payments
If employer groups routinely make partial payments, you can leverage technology to improve the partial payment process. With modern billing technology, you can leverage rules to apply payments to specific products or people first and what level of underpayment to allow. That generally works well if you have consistent, well-defined rules to apply to partial payments.
If you don’t, you can leverage technology to manually apply partial payments to specific members by plan and coverage period. For example, if employer groups routinely send you a revised roster with
Best For: Automatically managing partial payments works well when you have well-defined rules applying to a large population. Manually applying payments works best with smaller populations with ill-defined payment application rules or no uniformity.
Let the System Automate Adjustments
Another option is to leverage software with an accounting basis, like Certifi, to automate adjustments based on enrollment data. A typical process involves:
- Send employer groups preliminary invoices. Let them review and send any eligibility modifications within a few days. Make those eligibility changes, then send them to the billing application to generate new invoices.
- Make employers pay all invoices in full. If any modifications occur between the preliminary and final invoice, update the eligibility records and send them to the billing system.
- If, like Certifi, the billing system uses accounting principles, it will automatically create the appropriate adjustments and include those on the next bill.
In this scenario, voluntary insurers may eliminate the preliminary invoice, have groups pay in full each month, send eligibility modifications, and let the adjustment automatically occur. This process improves billing accuracy by eliminating much of the manual work that insurers and employers must complete in most billing processes.
Best For: Any insurance product where timelined eligibility information is maintained.
By leveraging modern billing software, voluntary benefits insurers can streamline their operations, improve accuracy, and enhance the overall employer experience. By automating manual tasks and ensuring data accuracy, insurers can maximize revenue to position themselves for long-term success in the competitive voluntary benefits market.
Certifi’s premium billing and payment solutions help voluntary insurers automate billing and payment processes to reduce administrative costs.
