Advanced Technology and Attention to Service Make a Difference

A customized solution to fit HealthTrust’s needs.

The Problem
HealthTrust, based in Concord, N.H., is an aggressive service and action arm of the New Hampshire Municipal Association. It develops programs to meet the needs of communities.

HealthTrust provides group health insurance benefits for New Hampshire municipal governments, school and village districts and other organizations. It currently administers health, dental, life insurance and disability benefits for more than 72,000 members. HealthTrust is focused on quality and customer service, but, according to HealthTrust Manager, Wendy Parker its information system was costing time and money. She knew HealthTrust could be more effective and could grow more rapidly with a new technology system. The problems, as she saw them, were numerous.

HealthTrust was using a legacy system that didn’t retain eligibility or coverage history online. So, if you had been buying health insurance plan “B,” but upgraded to plan “A,” all the “B” information was lost on the system as soon as the new choice was made. The system was old, difficult to use and inflexible. Therefore, the work was done manually, making it very time intensive.

Parker also suspected that there was a lack of functionality in the system that required manual effort and this resulted in more errors than were acceptable to her. She needed a more robust, flexible solution. HealthTrust also needed a system that could consolidate multiple bills into one encompassing bill. It was sending out one bill for its members’ health insurance coverage, another for dental coverage, another for vision coverage, another for disability coverage and another for life insurance coverage. Parker knew the simple consolidation of all into a single bill would save money and frustration for his staff and customers.

So Parker went shopping for a new system. She heard about Birmingham, Al.-based DST Health Solutions (DSTHS), an application services provider and business process outsourcer to the healthcare payer industry and gave them a call. She learned that the DSTHS System Suite is an N-tier, client-server product integrated with state-of-the-art technology such as Microsoft® Windows NT, Microsoft® SQL Server™ 7.0, Microsoft Excel® and Seagate Crystal Reports™. DSTHS told her that the technology would give HealthTrust:

• Complete history of all data including detailed transaction logs
• Significantly reduced manual processing
• A rules-based approach for maximum flexibility
• Non-stop reliability
• User-friendly navigation and online copy/paste functionality
• Ease of integration with third party packages
• Expedited development of system enhancements for customizations that are directed at solving their particular business issues
• Ease of implementation
• Increased productivity

She found superior technology and discovered she could have it implemented and maintained by a company that has a reputation for business and system knowledge, being solutions oriented and boasting a tremendous service record. In addition to implementing the system, DSTHS would provide software maintenance services, support and custom software enhancements for HealthTrust. The DSTHS System Suite is a major part of its business process outsourcing and system consulting services, meaning its staff is experienced with the system and its potential. DSTHS specializes in customizing the system to meet a client’s specific operational needs and situation.

THE ANALYSIS
Once the letter of intent was signed, staff from DSTHS’ project team went to HealthTrust’s Concord headquarters to conduct an in-depth business analysis of the operation and its needs. One of the first discoveries by DSTHS staff verified one of Parker’s suspicions – HealthTrust had an error rate on its data entry that could be improved substantially. The old character-based system was hard to use, which was a primary reason for the data entry errors. And errors cost money.

DSTHS met and discussed HealthTrust’s needs with its staff, and the message was clear -- it needed to address eligibility and billing needs, and it needed to integrate its short-and long-term disability and life insurance coverages into a single bill.

The other challenge HealthTrust faced was storing salary information on its system so it could charge the correct premium for its short-and long-term disability insurance product, which is salary based.

THE FIX
HealthTrust wanted to buy its own hardware. DSTHS provided the hardware specifications and provided implementation and system software support.

DSTHS is known for providing services to healthcare plans and consumer-directed health plans. This was the first time it had worked with an insurance trust. DSTHS started with the basic DSTHS System Suite, but added significant enhancements to the software. That meant 348 hours of special code development for HealthTrust’s system -- customization that enhanced the system to meet HealthTrust’s specific needs, including allowing for storage of salary, life insurance and disability information. And DSTHS put HealthTrust’s project on the fast track so that it could quickly realize the benefits of this advanced technology.

“HealthTrust selected DSTHS to customize and implement this solution, train our staff and support the software because of its flexibility and commitment to service excellence,” said Parker. “This advanced software means that HealthTrust is receiving the best solution on the market today enabling us to better serve our members.”

HealthTrust has gone from issuing four separate invoices to a single, consolidated bill. Customer service processes, the capture and tracking of inquiries and letter generation are new, automated and integrated. Printing and processing invoices was cut from more than 14 hours of effort to just three hours, and system unavailability was eliminated. HealthTrust’s members are elated with the new billing capabilities, especially since retro adjustments are now performed automatically instead of manually. And HealthTrust’s move to this new, customized system has greatly improved data management capabilities. “We’ve actually extracted data from the system that has helped us to improve business processes,” said Parker.

“We are very satisfied with both the solution and the service we have gotten from DSTHS. It’s a good feeling to know that the technology and expertise won’t be outdated tomorrow, but that it will, in fact, continue to grow and develop. And last, but certainly not least, is the fact that with this new solution we are far more efficient today, which allows us to provide more personal service to our members. And when you’re an organization like HealthTrust that’s what it’s all about… providing better service to members,” Parker said.

For more about DST Health Solutions, contact us at inforequests@dsthealthsolutions.com.