Guest Post by Lauren Brown, Executive Director of Marketing @ Compex
With claims severity on the rise, litigation management expenses are increasing at an alarming rate. To manage these higher severity, higher complexity claims, insurance carriers must obtain more records than ever before. But some insurance carriers are saving hours–or even tens of hours–per claim file by integrating record retrieval into their P&C Management workflows. And they’re doing it with little to no initial upfront investment or IT outlay.
Integrating the record retrieval process directly into your P&C platform and workflow drives efficiency, collapses claims cycle time, and reduces claims and legal expenses. By working closely with carriers who have successfully achieved these benefits, we’ve identified a set of common factors–five strategic initiatives that lead to successful reductions in claims and legal expenses, even despite the trend of growing claims severity:
1. Focus on Cost Reduction by Streamlining Operations Across Claims & Legal
As part of ongoing enterprise efficiency and cost reduction initiatives, many carriers are undertaking efforts to streamline operations across claims & legal. These efforts are broad, often reaching across multiple teams and process areas.
Integrating record retrieval into your P&C platform workflow contributes to these efforts by providing greater access to records between claims and legal, increasing visibility and avoiding duplication of orders. When everyone touching a claim file can see the records attached to it directly in the claim file, a carrier has achieved the next level of visibility, leading to less time (and duplication of work effort) tracking down records, reducing costs and freeing up more time for higher value activities.
A record retrieval integration provides other cost reduction benefits too. Previously, with multiple teams ordering records, invoices and billing would be fragmented and susceptible to errors by adjusters, such as assigning record orders to the wrong case file. These errors would require time consuming and expensive audits to correct and reapply orders to the right claim file, but ordering records directly via Duck Creek mitigates the errors altogether. The consolidation of orders and billing under one enterprise umbrella has also empowered carriers to take advantage of economies of scale by ordering records in bulk, further supporting cost reduction initiatives.
Finally, carriers integrating record retrieval directly into their P&C platform workflow have achieved significant reductions in claims cycle time–by as much as 60 days. When Legal has treatment information from Claims, they know the locations from which they need to order additional records. But without that information, they have to go through discovery in many jurisdictions, slowing down the litigation process. By ordering more records upfront and sharing them across Claims and Legal, carriers can reduce cycle time across many of their claims, and thereby reduce litigation management expenses by working smarter.
2. Deploy a 100% Digital Workflow, Supported by Time-saving Electronic Tools
Carriers seeking to reduce claims and legal expenses have steadily increased adoption of digital workflows and tools, and the greater need for remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated that adoption. Integrating record retrieval into your P&C platform workflow supports this shift by providing thoughtfully considered tools that eliminate the need for paper, discs, and mail, so Claims and Legal teams can work more efficiently through process digitization.
One example of a digital tool that works well is an integrated DICOM Film Viewer. Instead of shipping hard copies of discs–which is the way that many in our industry still do business–electronic copies of films can be added to the claim file directly in Duck Creek, and the built-in DICOM viewer makes it easy to view the films electronically. Other electronic tools such as Annotation Tools and Medical and Billing Record Summaries enable time-saving electronic manipulation and analysis of records.
This digital workflow particularly comes in handy when the need arises to share records and films with an Independent Medical Expert (IME), outside counsel, or another third-party. Sharing records with IMEs and other third parties is accomplished with just a few clicks, and a built-in DICOM viewer enables the third party to view films electronically. Carriers leveraging this digital workflow have reduced cycle time by days or even weeks, while realizing cost savings by reducing shipping & handling (S&H) charges.
Finally, by integrating record retrieval into your P&C platform workflow, team members are able to save time, since much of the information needed for each records request is automatically pre-populated from the claim file, and instead of records being manually received and filed by an individual, they are immediately added to the carrier’s claims or document management system once they are received.
3. Reduce Claims Cycle Time Leveraging A Nationwide Record Custodian Network
By integrating an established record retrieval partner’s capabilities into your P&C platform workflow, carriers can immediately benefit from long-standing relationships with tens of thousands of record custodians nationwide. These relationships give you a major advantage in retrieving records quickly and efficiently.
One way we achieve this advantage is by standing up digital workflows that integrate directly into custodian’s processes and technologies, in order to minimize turnaround time for records requests. As a result, delays and obstacles are minimized, so your records get delivered quickly and reliably.
4. Achieve a Faster Path to Insight With Built-in Medical Record Summarization
A common efficiency and cost reduction initiative among top nationwide carriers is to take advantage of medical and billing record summarization services, which drastically reduce the amount of attorney, paralegal and claims personnel time spent organizing and reviewing documents.
Because summaries are delivered directly to the P&C platform as the records come in, your team gets the key points from the records associated with any claim in an easy-to-consume format, collapsing the hours-long process of analyzing medical records down to minutes, and thereby reducing litigation management expenses substantially.
5. Harness the Power of Analytics to Make More Informed Decisions
It’s no secret that advanced analytics is a hot topic, especially for the data-driven insurance industry. But the quality of the analysis can only be as strong as the data going into it, and as always, the more data, the better. Innovative carriers who are already integrating record retrieval into their P&C platform workflow are making the raw data they need to drive fraud detection, litigation outcome probability modeling, and other advanced analytics applications immediately available, precisely in the location that they need it to be for it to be actionable. The result: they have a faster path from raw information to insight, giving them the ability to make more informed decisions.
Innovative carriers are also reducing cycle time and litigation management expenses by using analytics dashboards to proactively manage record retrieval workflows, the same way they manage other process areas that impact overall performance. This approach empowers carriers to identify areas for optimization, streamlining operations across claims and legal.
By putting into motion these five strategic initiatives, tech-forward carriers are uncovering sources of value quickly with minimal need for change management, and little to no work required from IT. As a result, they are successfully driving efficiency, collapsing claims cycle time, and reducing claims and legal expenses.
About Compex
Compex is the nation’s leading record retrieval provider. We serve thousands of law firms and the largest insurance carriers to provide record retrieval, record summarization, IME interface, and deposition reporting solutions that reduce cost and cycle time. We empower our clients to make faster, more informed decisions by streamlining across claims, legal, and third parties.
Founded in 1972, Compex leads the industry in years of experience, technology, and client service. With 36 offices nationwide, Compex obtains records in all 50 states and abroad. Our leadership in geographic reach and technological innovation make Compex well-known for improving efficiency, simplifying processes, and delighting our customers.
Compex is the only record retrieval partner providing a direct, native integration with Duck Creek.
To learn more about Compex’s Duck Creek integration, please click here: https://pages.cpxlegal.com/duck-creek
Lauren Brown
Executive Director of Marketing
Compex
