The Internet boom is over for many, but for others, like health insurer Discovery, the age of the Internet is just beginning.
Trent Rossini, the company`s divisional head, is pleased with the progress of the company`s online portal and self-service channel Discovery World. More than 25% of clients now use the Web site when interacting with Discovery, significantly reducing the overheads of servicing them through the call centre.
Rossini says this results in a more than 20% reduction in the average number of phone calls to the call centre per customer. With the cost of servicing each call averaging R30, the savings are significant.
More important, however, are the benefits the company has seen in the area of claims processing. Johan van Rooyen, client management GM, says with more than 65% of health partners - doctors and medical institutions - now submitting claims electronically, the time cycle between a claim being submitted and settled has dropped from about 60 days to virtually nil.
With real-time adjudication of claims, both sides benefit, says Van Rooyen. For medical service providers, immediate submission of claims reduces the administration load and ensures that debts are settled as soon as possible. For patients, the time between a consultation and a statement can be 24 hours or less.
According to Rossini, the number of doctors submitting claims electronically is growing significantly. Two years ago about 50% were submitting electronically; today the figure is 65% and Discovery is hoping to grow this through its Discovery Health Partners programme.
Rossini says the company sends out more than 1.5 million e-mails a month to clients, brokers and doctors. It also receives a significant number of e-mails each month and the company has had to build its systems to ensure that these are included in clients` profiles. "Through our customer launch-pad we have a single view of each customer and each channel is aware of communications on the other channels."
Rossini and Van Rooyen say the benefits are more than financial, as the company can now concentrate on the "value-adds" it provides, rather than dealing with "mundane" calls.
Van Rooyen says the Vitality rewards programme is a good example, and over the past year has increased its activity significantly without requiring additional staff. This is due to the increased backend integration between Discovery and its Vitality partners such as SterKinekor, which eliminates the need for Discovery`s call centre staff to process applications directly.
Discovery has over 500 000 members and about 1.25 million clients, including dependents.
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