Independent Health Association Maintains Premium Service Throughout ID Conversion Process | Healthcare

11/7/2024

RRD supports leading health plan’s goal to provide signature RedShirt® Treatment while undergoing significant member data updates

CHALLENGE  

Independent Health Association (IHA), a health plan rooted in Western New York, is committed to improving the well-being of all members. Led by healthcare providers in executive roles, Independent Health is proud to prioritize optimal health outcomes above everything else.

The RedShirt® Treatment — a promise to deliver exceptional customer service — is the hallmark of IHA. This promise guides what IHA offers to members, employer groups, brokers, and provider partners. IHA’s mission is to provide access to quality coverage at an affordable cost while enhancing the health and well-being of the communities they serve. 

When faced with a new member ID requirement that could negatively impact member experience, Independent Health took the challenge seriously. IHA needed a tech-driven solution, which wasn’t achievable with internal knowledge alone. IHA sought a trustworthy partner with expertise in systems integration that could enable them to accomplish their vision. Thanks to a more than a decade-long partnership between IHA and RRD, that partner was close at hand. 

SOLUTION 

IHA’s new growth meant that some member ID numbers had to be changed to a new format. Per IHA’s high service standards, this update would have to be flawless for internal operations and members. With historical invoices, customer portal credentials, and electronic payments tied to those numbers, online disruption for members was a real risk. 

As an experienced solution provider, RRD understood the importance of maintaining IHA’s commitment to RedShirt customer experiences. While IHA’s team coordinated the project to ensure alignment with their internal processes, RRD served as subject matter experts. 

Meg Cleary, IHA’s Revenue Systems and Operations Manager, shared, “Anything we think of to improve online member experience — RRD makes it come to life. Partnering with the RRD team to discover new efficiencies has been so easy, and they have been wildly helpful. It’s been an incredible partnership that has led to extensive improvements.”

To execute the member ID update, each member needed to be assigned two ID numbers. Legacy member IDs were kept internally for reference, while new account numbers were issued and integrated across systems. The account number conversion process was seamless for end users, retaining all profile information, payment history, and recurring payment setups.

The critical update was phased in using a specialized account updater file. The phased approach allowed Independent Health to control the transition without data integrity issues. Post-migration, the search functionality enabled the use of new account numbers for easier document retrieval.

RRD’s Business Communication Solutions (BCS) team provides and manages several technologies for IHA that ensure an easy online experience for members. RRD’s ePay capability facilitates electronic billing payment, and RRD’s client portal maintains storage and archive systems. The member ID conversion project entailed some changes to these systems in order to accommodate end users. Steps for implementation included:

• Adding a new field in the billing file for legacy member IDs
• Syncing systems, including ePay, PIVOT, single sign-on (SSO) processes, and API calls, to maintain data integrity
• Comprehensive testing in a demo environment before production changes

During the ID update, members experienced minimal service disruption. Printed invoices were mailed seamlessly, and digital invoices for those enrolled in paperless billing were also delivered without a hitch. 

Naturally, IHA prioritized the customer experience during this transition, and RRD accommodated this. “The online experience improved the member experience, which in turn improved the Independent Health experience. With an extremely user-friendly site, member wait time in a call center queue has essentially vanished. This is a huge improvement,” observed Cleary.

RESULTS

This technology helped Independent Health maintain RedShirt service to approximately 5,000 affected members. Upon implementation of the solution, the team also achieved some additional upgrades and updates:

• Improved document storage, with 364,450 documents hosted in archive
• Reduced individual document file size, with 89.75% compression achieved for PDFs in archive 
• Enhanced real-time document request, retrieval, and presentation in connected systems

Subsequent to the new ID attribution, members continued to enjoy the benefits of ePay:

• Easy access for customers and IHA’s call center employees to new and historical documents around the clock
• Consistent and efficient emails and invoices
• A fully online experience, eliminating the need to contact the call center
• Enhanced real-time document request, retrieval, and presentation in connected systems
• ePay has sent 99,202 API calls (PDF retrievals) over the last 2 years, or 49,600 API calls annually

With RRD as a trustworthy external resource, IHA was able to offload the burden of executing the member ID conversion process. As a result, their red-shirted associates could focus on what they do best: helping folks across Western New York get and stay healthy.