Building a Better Insurance Application

 

Reconciliation is the process of reviewing digital claims forms before they’re submitted to insurance providers, and it’s a critical step to ensure accuracy, prevent fraud, and reduce overbilling. However, as the amount of digital data increases, the process of reconciliation threatens to overwhelm many insurance organizations.

Matching incoming payments to their source and reconciling the respective account is no easy task. There are tens of millions of policyholders, using various installment options, multiple distribution channels, and different payment methods. 

As a result, insurance agencies are struggling to keep up with the document management required for reconciliation. In fact, recent research has found that just 42 percent of insurers achieve a 90 percent or higher reconciliation rate for matched premium payment receipts. The rest have rates falling somewhere between 50 and 90 percent. 

One reason so many organizations struggle with reconciliations is that traditional document management policies aren’t up to the task. With a lack of automated processes, forms processing and verification can take weeks instead of days, limiting the ability of staff to complete claims files or work on other projects.

And although legacy, paper-based processes for data capture and forms processing haven’t met the efficiency expectations of new digital markets, many organizations remain reluctant to adopt digital solutions for fear of disrupting current processes.

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Streamlining the Reconciliation Process

Building a better insurance application with the right integrations is one way that organizations can make drastic improvements to their reconciliation processes. Thankfully, there is a way for organizations to streamline their existing processes without having to build custom applications from scratch. This can be done with the help of next-gen forms processing software development kids (SDKs) that integrate with existing applications to provide accurate optical character recognition (OCR), document cleanup, insurance form automation, and – most importantly – streamlined data entry. 

Adding the ability to capture data from scanned forms enables office staff to process reconciliations faster, while also reducing the incidence of human error due to manual data entry. Using a forms processing SDK, featuring advanced OCR and intelligent algorithms capable of “learning” new patterns over time to improve accuracy, insurance companies can boost process efficiency and capture valuable data for longer-term strategic use.

 

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Additional Benefits for Insurance Teams

Intelligent form automation with forms processing SDK can further reduce the burden on office staff by deploying a combination of intelligent character recognition (ICR) and optical mark recognition (OMR). From checkboxes to handwritten descriptions and typed procedure codes, ICR/OMR capable offerings can both verify accuracy and capture physical data, in turn reducing the amount of claim revisions and rejections.

Furthermore, building an efficient, accurate reconciliation process can provide a distinct competitive advantage to insurance agencies. A 2018 report by McKinsey & Company found that by increasing automation to streamline claims processing,  insurers can drive a 20 percent increase in customer satisfaction scores, as well as a 25 to 30 percent reduction in claim expenses. 

Ultimately, the integration of form processing SDKs into existing applications is one solution that can help insurance agencies streamline their document management processes, enjoy faster and more accurate reconciliations, reduce the burden on office teams, and improve the overall customer experience.