United Healthcare

Tools used
ChannelPoint Insure™, CORBA.

Type of Industry:
Healthcare/Insurance

Descriptions:
ChannelPoint®, Inc., a provider of electronic insurance and benefits distribution, announced in Q4 of 1998 that the Healthcare Services operation of United HealthCare, one of America's largest health management companies, has standardized on ChannelPoint Insure™ for its insurance distribution processes.

"Our partnership with ChannelPoint has the potential to affect extraordinary change in the insurance industry," said Mike Mooney, Senior Vice president, for United HealthCare Health Care Services. "With ChannelPoint Insure, United HealthCare expects to be able to provide greater choice and control in healthcare purchase decisions and dramatically streamline administrative processes. That will allow us to be the leader in providing unprecedented levels of service for our customers."

"We are extremely pleased to partner with United HealthCare, one of the nation's leading health management companies," said Ken Hollen, President and CEO of ChannelPoint. "By deploying ChannelPoint, United HealthCare is reaping the benefits of our commitment to 100% customer satisfaction, and the most innovative insurance distribution solution ever introduced in the industry's history. United HealthCare's deployment of ChannelPoint Insure truly represents the beginning of a new era for the insurance industry."

United HealthCare serves more than 13 million members throughout the country. ChannelPoint Insure is providing a comprehensive electronic solution for all of United HealthCare's small group insurance distribution processes including product modeling, rating methodology creation, quote and proposal generation, enrollment, case processing, rating and underwriting, and renewal.

According to a recent BancAmerica Robertson Stephens study, paper-intensive administration, duplication of effort, and slow product and pricing updates are costing the insurance industry $54 billion a year. It also states that administrative costs represent 16%-22% of each premium dollar. ChannelPoint Insure enables United HealthCare to dramatically lower these administration and processing costs by streamlining its internal operations.

ChannelPoint Insure also enables United Healthcare to improve service levels to members and brokers. For example, ChannelPoint Insure will enable United Healthcare to respond to proposal requests in minutes rather than days and to process enrollment applications in days instead of weeks, as is common with many other carriers.

In addition, ChannelPoint Insure enables United HealthCare to forward pertinent enrollment information to other internal organizations. An example of how this can benefit the company is by enabling its medical management group to proactively offer tailored intervention programs to members with specific medical conditions. Such proactive measures lead to enhanced customer satisfaction, lower group turnover and long-term claims and premium reduction. The data gathered throughout the business cycle can also be used by United HealthCare to effectively model more comprehensive and better-tailored health plans for the future.

Finally, ChannelPoint Insure will allow United Healthcare to increase top line revenue by enabling brokers to spend less time on administrative activities and more time with customers, increasing customer acquisition and retention rates.

United HealthCare Health Services is a unit of United HealthCare Corporation. They are located on the web at http://www.unitedhealthcare.com. United HealthCare provides a full spectrum of resources and services to help people achieve improved health and well being through all stages of life.