Sometimes it’s best to leave a job to the experts. For many companies that may mean outsourcing their marketing department, their accounting, or their facility maintenance. For some, it is a matter of professional claim intake. Whether it’s after-hours or full-time, claim intake outsourcing solutions can drastically improve the productivity profitability of a business while simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction. It’s a situation in which everyone walks away happy because each member of the process is entrusted in the field of his or her expertise. For more on the importance of outsourcing claim intake and FNOL (first notice of loss), check out our article at http://www.articlesbase.com/outsourcing-articles/claim-intake-accuracy-key-to-successful-fnol-execution-4097724.html.
Author: Andrew
7 Key Terms in the Field of First Notice of Loss
There several important terms when discussing first notice – they may seem esoteric, but their meaning and execution have enhance many businesses and improved the quality of many lives. A positive FNOL interaction is key to successful business operation, but also makes the difference between brightening someone’s day and besmirching it.
- First Notice of Loss – The initial report of a claim or incident resulting in loss of an insured product. A crucial element of insurance coverage.
- FNOL – Abbreviation for First Notice of Loss
- First Report of Injury – The initial report of a claim or incident resulting in injury to an employee. A employer practice required by law.
- FROI – Abbreviation for First Report of Injury
- Claim Management – The conveyance of an insurance-related claim through a system of communication and investigation to ascertain the appropriate compensation. The more adept and timely the claim management, the less shrink for insurers and the higher satisfaction for clients.
- Incident Reporting – A system of documentation for FNOL in which specific details must be thoroughly recorded to ensure proper claim management. Well-trained personnel and a modern, sophisticated incident reporting medium significantly reduce costs due to slow resolution, shrink, and other organizational issues.
- Claim Intake Specialist – Personnel cross-trained in claim management and incident reporting to deliver maximized resolution for client and insurer with minimized investment of time and resources.
There are other component of FNOL , but familiarity with these 7 key terms will illuminate much of our industry and its purpose.
Actec Publishes Article on FNOL in Inclement Conditions
When utilizing FNOL (first notice of loss) operations, it is critical to stay technologically astute, harnessing all available venues to maximize the client experience. This is seldom more apparent than during times of inclement meteorological conditions, which will be explored in a specific case below. Data must be integrated across all contact methods, including telephonic, e-mail, fax, and direct web entry, for consolidated reporting and may be filtered by contact method if needed. Individual notices should immediately transmit via automated e-mail or fax to any number of recipients, based on the location, type of report and other criteria. Scheduled summary reports must also be available, allowing regular electronic distribution of reports daily, weekly, monthly, or by custom period to multiple recipients based on level of management within an organization. For more, read the article.
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Actec’s FNOL (First Notice of Loss) Claim Management Operating in Inclement Conditions
Although most of Atlanta, including schools, had been shut down for 3 days, Actec’s FNOL was open for business and maintaining top level first notice of loss. Though uncommon for the Atlanta area, strong snowstorms do sometimes occur, crippling the region. Lack of snow removal equipment combined with a storm that dumped nearly 6 inches in less than 3 hours created numerous problems. Here is a breakdown of our claim reporting statistics for Tuesday 1/11/2011. In the face of these conditions, we managed an average answer speed of 33 seconds and an abandon rate of only 2.7%!
Through careful planning by Actec staff, hotel rooms were secured near the FNOL Call Center in Atlanta. Most of the staff had stayed at the hotel since Sunday night and were within shuttle or walking distance. Additionally, we utilized remote employees to ensure maximum customer call reception. Thank you to all our employees who took time away from family to make sure our customers were taken care of.
Long-time Customer Marriott’s Claim Intake System Going Offline for Major Upgrade
Marriott Hotel Corporation is taking down their claim intake system for FNOL intake starting 1/13 and lasting until 1/18. But worry not – whenever we utilize another company’s FNOL intake system, we always use “CLAIM”, our proprietary intake system, as a backup. By setting up our system as a fail-safe, there will be no downtime in claim handling. Outsourcing claim intake is a huge benefit to many companies. Whether we utilize your system or ours, claims are always managed promptly, allowing for their timely and proper closure.
Configuring Claim Service
Claim intake is not a one-size-fits-all service. Starting with an in-depth analysis of your goals and current process ensures development of a custom workflow that is right for you. It’s critical to use your business rules to ensure accuracy, minimize call times, and reduce follow-up calls.
• Roll out quickly with Actec’s best practices workflow for a complete, logically organized report.
• Give your customers any combination of reporting options: telephone, e-mail, fax, Internet, and even electronic file submission.
• Let Actec enter notices directly into your in-house claims management application, seamlessly launched from our contact tracking module, which allows us to offer additional reporting, tracking, forms management, and dissemination capabilities.
• Respond quickly to critical incidents. Your customized plan specifies the data collected, format of reports, detailed recipient notification, and escalation procedures.
• Ensure correct routing of claims – even verify coverage upfront – with rules-driven policy and claim office assignment.
• Increase accuracy, consistency, and efficiency by providing policyholder, location, distribution, carrier, and employee demographic data to populate notices at intake.
• Customize list options with job titles, department codes, medical coding, PPO providers, and more.
• Send data in any file layout, at any frequency – we handle the rest to minimize your IT resource needs.
Electronic State Filing
Mandatory EDI filing may be the biggest headache in Workers’ Comp claim administration. Requirements vary from state to state. Missing or invalid data lead to time-consuming resubmission, filing delays, customer frustration, and even fines. If EDI filing gives you pain, Actec spells relief. Our experts carefully review FROI, SROI and medical bill filings prior to transmission to make sure your filings are done once, Done Right!.
Contact Paul Neleman to learn how Actec can improve your Electronic State Filings
Recent Case Study Results: After-Hours Call Center Solution
The Problem:
When a human resources administration service company developed an in-house absence management system, they wanted their previous after-hours call center vendor to enter claioms directly into the new application. The vendor refused, offering instead to develop a custom intake solutiong – at the client’s expense. Without an intake service, the client risked alienating their most important customer accounts. The client came to Actec with two absolute requirements – use the newly developed application and start within nine days.
The Solution:
Each of the client’s accounts – primarily large, Fortune 500 companies – requires special handling, from caller authorization to terminology. This was not provided on the custom intake system. Therefore, training and manual documentation was extremely critical. Within seven days, Actec was trained on the client’s system. Actec then prepared workstation manuals and developed backup intake forms to use during the client’s nightly system maintenance downtime. With an intensive week of training, manual preparation anc connectivity and user setup, we opened our phone lines right on target. The client extended coverage to daytime overflow.
Factors contributing to Actec’s success were:
- Intake Specialists could call on their familiarity with a broad client base in the absence management, FMLA and disability arena – minimizing training time.
- Utilizing extensive experience to provide intake services on client applications.
- Agile organization showed the flexibility required to implement a complex client on a short timeline.
Outsourcing Call Overflow to Maximize Your Call Center Effectiveness
Do you have high ASA’s? Do you have high abandonment rates? Your call center is the first contact that your customers have when problems strike. As with most call centers, there are times when your occupancy rates are at 90% – and no one is available to answer the phone.
You could return the call an hour later or the next day, but that may be too late, and they may have already contacted an attorney. This will increase the cost of your claims dramatically and will simultaneously reduce the effectiveness and level of customer service provided by your organization. This is why many of today’s contact centers employ outsourced call centers staffer with claims professionals to improve the customer experience.
By leveraging a contact center for overflow, nights, weekends and holidays, you will improve the efficiency in your organization by as much as 40% while greatly improving your customer experience. All of which impact the bottom line. Today, many high quality call centers outsource FNOL (First Notice of Loss) for overflow and non-peak times.
Insurers with longer than average cycle times of 14.8 days are rated in the bottom 50% in terms of customer satisfaction. – J.D. Power and Associates
At 80%+ call center occupancy your people are busy, turnover increases due to burnout, customer service is poor, and many calls go unanswered. At 50% occupancy your people have some down time, customer service levels are relatively good, and most calls are answered. At 20% occupancy, almost every call is answered, ASA times are short, customer service is superb; however efficiency is low and the cost per claim is astronomical.
Finding the right outsourced call FNOL solution can allow your call center to improve efficiency and reach maximum effectiveness.