Copyright © 2003 Business Insurance

"Online Benefits Management Growing" September 9, 2002

by:   JOANNE WOJCIK

Within three years, the Internet will become an important tool for employers in the management of their group health care benefits, according to a recent survey of employer health care coalitions and benefit managers.

An increasing number of employers will use the Internet for enrollment and to educate employees on the use of their health plans, coalition executives forecast in a report released this summer by Health2 Resources, a health care research and strategic planning firm based in Vienna, Va.

Employers also are expected to tap the Internet to conduct disease management programs and to provide assistance to employees in making health care purchasing decisions, according to the report.

But few, if any, Internet vendors currently are capable of performing all of the benefits management functions that employers require, according to findings of the report, "How Employers are Using the Internet in the Management of Health Benefits: The eHealth Promise."

The report, produced in association with the National Business Coalition on Health with a grant from Schering-Plough, is based on responses from 27 employer coalition directors and one-on-one interviews with the benefit managers at four major employers: AOL Time Warner Inc., General Electric Co., General Motors Corp. and R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. Health2 Resources also drew from other polls, including those conducted by Harris, The Pew Foundation, the California Health Foundation and The Commonwealth Fund.

 The chief goals of the research are to understand the factors motivating employers to use the Internet in administering and managing their health care benefits, to determine the characteristics that employers value in an "eHealth" vendor and to offer guidance to employers seeking to purchase online health care benefit products and services.

Although they do not consider it important now, 77% of coalition directors responding to the Health2 Resources survey said that within three years the Internet will become an important tool for their employer members in managing health care benefits.

The coalition directors estimate that about 40% of their members already conduct enrollment online and that a greater percentage-about 70%-are using the Internet to provide health and wellness information to their employees.

According to coalition directors, the most important functions that an Internet-based health administration system should perform are:

- Enrollment.

- Administrative support.

- Benefit selection and changes.

- Eligibility and determination.

- Defining plan information, such as provider directories and centers of excellence.

- Tracking claims and benefits.

Unfortunately, few, if any, online vendors currently have Internet-based systems capable of performing all of these functions, according to the interviews with benefit managers contained in the report.

For example, in reviewing online vendors' capabilities, Donnelley found that they are not making equal investments in multiple product lines, according to M.J. Burg, director of health and welfare benefits in Chicago.

"A lot of employers, like Donnelley, recognize that employees do not want to call several different 1-800 numbers to get information on benefits," she said. Likewise, they do not want to have to visit several Internet sites to obtain such information, she added.

"We would expect that our plans offer employees certain Web-enabled capabilities by the year 2003, or we will have to make some difficult decisions about whether we will continue to do business with them," Ms. Burg said in the report.

Likewise, GM was unable to find a vendor to provide disease and care management for its salaried employees because of their limited capabilities, according to Tom Weatherup, director of e-health care implementation health care initiatives for the Detroit-based automaker.

"We had a vision of what we wanted, but no one met that vision," he said. As a result, GM was forced to step back and redefine its expectations, he added.

"We want strategic partners who we believe have the bandwidth and the interest to move forward and to help us make things easier for our employees, delivering benefits in an exceptional way," said Harry L. Spencer, vp of global benefits at AOL Time Warner in New York.

"If a plan does not have that capability, we do not do business with them," concurred Francois de Brantes, program leader, health care initiatives, at Fairfield, Conn.-based GE.

Copies of the report are available for $24.95 for employers and $74 for consultants and vendors from www.hin.com/store. For more information on the report, contact project manager Katherine H. Capps, president of Health2 Resources, at 703-319-0957 or via e-mail at health2@aol.com.

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