Extend Your Product Line With Ancillary Benefits

This article is part of a series of case studies—real stories of how managed care companies increased profits by using Summit Re’s resources to increase sales, decrease expenses, and manage claims. Although our primary focus is protecting your company’s balance sheet through excess of loss reinsurance coverage, we also help you accomplish your strategic objectives with a broad array of other products and services.

This case study addresses adding ancillary benefits to your group medical plans, such as group term life, disability, dental and vision coverage. Summit Re provides these ancillary programs through Companion Life Insurance Company, rated A+ (superior) by A.M. Best. Companion Life offers competitive benefit programs which can be customized to fit your market needs.

Why Ancillary Benefits?

Most employers prefer the simplicity of one source for all their employee benefits, if possible. Agents appreciate the reduction in paperwork associated with working with one entity and are pleased when told that their ancillary sales through the health plan qualifies for the same bonuses as any other sale.

Customized Programs

Here are a few examples of ways the program can be customized:

• Separate or combined billing
• Propriety benefit and rate options
• Proprietary brochure with your branding, e.g. logo, colors, typeface.
• Flexible sales compensation, bonus and incentive trip options
• Rating ability in your sales office

Companion Life has the experienced personnel to help you successfully market these products, including dedicated sales specialists in these product lines.

One Company’s Story

ABC Health Plan previously worked with a major HMO excess reinsurer with ancillary product capabilities in these product lines. However, the company was sold and service deteriorated. The new owner put less emphasis on ancillary products.

This health plan in the past was very successful at marketing these programs and had even assumed risk through a captive arrangement. Over time, they decided they prefer the non-risk approach where they’re strictly a distributor of the products and have no ongoing administrative role or underwriting risk.

As service issues persisted, they put their ancillary products out to bid. Summit Re assisted the client in development of the RFP, which was then used as a template to evaluate carrier bids. Companion Life’s bid included not only a formal response to the RFP, but also on-site presentations to personally address all product and service options, issues and concerns.

ABC Health Plan moved all of its ancillary product business (life, dental, and disability) to Companion Life Insurance Company. The relationship has “worked well” and ABC Health Plan is “very happy” with Companion Life.

Goal: Reduce Inpatient Admissions

This article is part of a series of case studies—real stories of how managed care companies increased profits by using Summit Re’s resources to increase sales, decrease expenses, and manage claims. You may be aware of Summit ReSources' consultative case management and managed care programs, but what you might not know is that our Managed Care Specialist is available to perform an in-depth assessment of your own medical management practices and procedures. This helps you ensure that your medical management is effective and efficient, not only for the benefit of your bottom line, but it also may ensure optimal outcomes for your members.

Goal: Reduce Admissions

ABC Health Plan recently contracted with Summit ReSources’ Managed Care Specialist to perform an evaluation of its medical management department. The overall goal of the health plan was to shift away from intense inpatient utilization management and focus on outpatient case management. In other words, the health plan recognized the importance of implementing steps to prevent the inpatient admissions in the first place.

On-site Evaluation

An on-site evaluation included staff interviews and assessments of policies, procedures, processes, and computer systems. Some of the issues addressed included:

• Are the health plan’s policies and procedures consistent with the NCQA standards?
• Are staffing patterns consistent with national benchmarks?
• What is the most cost-effective way to perform utilization management?
• What are appropriate outcome measures for medical management?
• What key features should be included in a disease management program?
• Which members should be referred for disease and case management?
• What are appropriate measures for return on investment for disease management and case management?
• What key features should be included in a predictive model?

Recommendations

Recommendations were made related to maintaining only the utilization management process that would provide the greatest clinical and financial value to the organization.

Since ABC Health Plan did not have a well-developed case management program, specific recommendations for the development of such a program were provided, including but not limited to, examples of case management referral triggers, screening tools, acuity measures, and return-on-investment documentation.

Post evaluation, there were several additional phone conferences regarding implementation of the recommendations.

The feedback from ABC Health Plan was that the assessment and recommendations were “crucial” and “most helpful” in moving the process forward to meet the overall goals of the organization.

Summit ReSources is available to provide an evaluation of your medical management program. Whether you are a small or large managed care organization, eliciting an outside evaluation of your medical management efforts can be beneficial. Summit Re works with efficient, cost-effective health plans, but most understand the need for continual improvements in medical management given the rapid changes in health care.

Managing NICU Costs

This article is part of a series of case studies—real stories of how managed care companies increased profits by using Summit Re’s resources to increase sales, decrease expenses, and manage claims. Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) costs, especially for managed Medicaid populations, are one of the top drivers of overall healthcare costs for health plans. The major reasons for the high NICU costs are a significant variability in NICU care patterns, continuous advances in NICU care which is often reflected by higher cost of care, and longer lengths of stay as premature infants are born younger and surviving, albeit with more complex care needs. So what is a health plan to do?

Summit ReSources, the Summit Re managed care department, works closely with The Assist Group, an NICU management company that provides care management, forensic hospital bill audits and a new service called EvalAssist.

Situation: Increase in NICU costs 

One of our clients, ABC Health Plan, experienced a significant increase in NICU costs over the last 2 years without a corresponding increase in membership. Summit ReSources recommended that ABC Health Plan consider contracting with The Assist Group for EvalAssist. After an initial conversation with The Assist Group, ABC Health Plan decided to move forward with EvalAssist.

On-site assessment

The Assist Group provided an on-site assessment of ABC Health Plan's NICU medical management processes and staffing, NICU facility and professional contracts, and claims submission and payment processes. The Assist Group also provided care management services to several cases referred to The Assist Group by ABC Health Plan.

Over the course of several months, the staff of The Assist Group worked closely with ABC Health Plan to analyze claims data for the past two years and compare the billing patterns to the facility and provider contracts. The Assist Group neonatologists worked directly with the attending neonatologists to discuss the optimal treatment plans for cases referred to The Assist Group for care management oversight. The Assist Group also provided benchmark data regarding lengths of stay based on gestational age and birth weight.

Recommendations

After approximately 3 months, The Assist Group revisited ABC Health Plan to discuss the comprehensive assessment and provide recommendations to maintain or improve the NICU management while decreasing overall cost of care. The overall increase in cost that ABC Health Plan experienced over the last two years was determined to be related to several factors. The Assist Group identified each factor and made recommendations to improve financial outcomes while maintaining quality of care.

Changes

After the key factors for rising overall costs were identified, ABC Health Plan implemented the recommended changes. The Assist Group met with the attending neonatologists to discuss standards of NICU care, worked with ABC Health Plan’s provider contracting department to revise contracts as needed, and assisted the claims department in development of a forensic claims review process prior to payment of the claims.

NICU management has become costly and complex. If you are experiencing rising NICU costs and want to understand the reasons, it is sometimes cost effective to have an outside consultant, who is experienced in all aspects of NICU care, review your processes and possibly identify some factors that would make a difference in your bottom line.

Managing Risk with Summit ReView

Managing risks effectively is critical to the financial health of your company. It starts with accurate risk analysis and ends with cost-effective risk management strategies. This is a complex task, but it is now easier since we have introduced Summit ReView. Summit ReView is a package of consulting services designed to provide detailed analysis of risk exposure as well as recommendations to mitigate those risks. Some of the services included in Summit ReView include:

• Our proprietary InSight analysis, which helps you determine if you should purchase reinsurance coverage and, if so, the appropriate deductible levels and average daily maximum limitations given your claim history, contracted arrangements with network facilities and referral patterns. (See Insights into large claims.)
• A detailed evaluation of your medical management department’s structure, policies and procedures, with comparisons to nationally recognized benchmarks and recommendations for improving program efficiencies and effectiveness.
• Our reinsurance “Report Card,” an objective measure for comparing reinsurance options.
• A comparison of material contractual provisions contained in the excess loss agreements issued by current leaders in the health plan reinsurance marketplace.
• A high-level assessment of the financial competitiveness of your pharmacy benefits management program.
• An assessment of your directors and officers/errors and omissions policy.
• Referrals to consultants who can serve as interim executives and assist with strategic planning.
• An analysis of your investment and cash management strategies and recommendations for improvements.

These services may be “unbundled” and pricing depends on the options selected.

With our experienced, talented people who grew up with pricing, underwriting, and administering medical excess products and our “bird’s eye view” of the marketplace, we can offer you additional perspectives that often prove invaluable in helping you develop on-target risk management strategies.

Employer Stop Loss—can we really do that?

This article is part of a series of case studies—real stories of how managed care companies increased profits by using Summit Re’s resources to increase sales, decrease expenses, and manage claims. Offering your provider networks and care management programs to self-funded employers may be a key area of expansion and one that builds on your core competencies.

We have a long history of working with HMOs that contract with TPAs or establish their own ASO capabilities for the employer stop loss business. Our background in the managed care reinsurance market allows us to understand the challenges our clients face and present a wide array of solutions.

In fact, we are so committed to this effort, we explicitly mention providing employer stop loss products and services in our Founding Principles.

Range of services

In most instances, HMOs look to us for competitive stop loss quotes that reflect the savings associated with accessing their networks and care management programs. In some instances, however, HMOs have a properly licensed insurance company and are interested in becoming risk takers. They would like to offer employers a complete stop loss platform, including administration, provider networks, care management programs and stop loss coverage. Since most HMOs do not have the stop loss coverage expertise on staff, Summit is able to act as a managing underwriter—performing pricing, underwriting, policy issuance and claim functions.

Case study background

Company ABC is a very successful HMO operating in two locations. The company historically used a handful of stop loss carriers to offer specific and aggregate coverage to its self-funded groups. During one of our visits, we asked a simple question: “Why don’t you consider writing employer stop loss coverage through your insurance company, rather than somebody else’s?”

They called us back the next day and said, “Did you really mean it? Can we really do that?” We said yes, and the rest is history.

Taking control

This HMO moved the majority of its business from its previous carriers to the HMO’s insurance company. Company ABC staff members have the flexibility and control to meet marketplace conditions with respect to pricing and underwriting, including the setting of appropriate rates, lasers, and binding limits prior to the effective date of coverage. While Summit Re makes recommendations on pricing and underwriting guidelines, Company ABC ultimately decides what terms and conditions it chooses to offer employer groups, since the health plan’s insurance company affiliate is assuming the risk. Even though Summit Re does the actual underwriting, policy issuance and claims adjudication for this client, the client retains the authority to make all final decisions.

In addition to our day-to-day involvement with Company ABC, Summit Re lined up excess-of-loss protection for its employer stop loss portfolio after Company ABC absorbs a corridor of risk.

Results

The deal has worked out just as the HMO and its affiliates had envisioned: the marketplace reaction was favorable.

• Clients knew the HMO had been in the marketplace for over 25 years and its B+ rating was more than acceptable (Weiss).
• The HMO brought strong provider contracts and case management capabilities to the employer stop loss product.
• The plan had good relationships with brokers, agents and customers in the marketplace.
• It could now offer a fully branded product including its provider contracts and network management capabilities, its TPA services and its employer stop loss policy.

In the words of Company ABC, “Summit Re met all of my service requirements. Things are great from our perspective. We look forward to a long relationship with Summit Re on this product line.”

Although this client didn’t need it, Summit Re was available to provide sales and marketing training to HMOs who are new to this self-funded marketplace. Summit Re is also in a position to recommend consultants who assist HMOs in setting up their own administrative shops and in getting their stop loss policy forms and rates filed with departments of insurance.

This approach won’t fit everybody,but is it right for you?

Insights into large claims

This article is part of a series of case studies—real stories of how managed care companies increased profits by using Summit Re’s resources to increase sales, decrease expenses, and manage claims. An insight is the act or result of comprehending the inner nature of things or seeing intuitively (Webster’s dictionary). This is a good description of what takes place in a Summit Re InSight analysis.

We often have a better perspective for viewing this inner nature of a large claim, since we only deal with coverage for large claims. Your staff must spend a majority of their efforts in areas that involve smaller and much more frequent claim events. This case study is an example of how an InSight analysis conducted by Summit Re helped a plan gain a better view of the inner nature of its catastrophic claims.

Situation: An increase in large claims

ABC health plan, located in a large metropolitan area, focuses on Medicaid members, specifically AFDC/TANF eligible members. AFDC/TANF membership is primarily composed of mothers and their children, and the majority of the large claims for this population involve premature infants or other infants with significant problems at birth. For this reason, the large claims from these situations are primarily from inpatient hospital confinements at facilities equipped to treat infants who are severely premature or have other critical problems. ABC health plan was seeing an increase in large claims from this population.

Cause: Reimbursement structure

ABC health plan utilized strong DRG contracts for most facilities in its state. The exception to this was for facilities classified as children’s hospitals. These facilities were considered in a unique category by the state for its Medicaid reimbursement methodology, and the plan was simply following the state’s lead for reimbursement. These types of facilities were paid on a percentage of billed charges determined by the state.

The state’s intention was to recognize these facilities as unique, and the state therefore concluded that the DRG reimbursement was not appropriate given the level and type of services the children’s hospitals were providing. What that meant for ABC health plan was that its most severe and highest cost claims were often being reimbursed at a percentage of billed charges. In this instance, the plan had little ability to contractually modify this reimbursement, although that was certainly an option for the plan to explore.

The reinsurance implication

How did these circumstances translate to the health plan’s needs for catastrophic medical excess reinsurance coverage? The plan had been purchasing coverage with a relatively low average daily maximum limitation for inpatient hospital services because of a mistaken perception that the strong DRG reimbursements at many facilities and deep discounts at children’s facilities were protecting it from all risk except for the exceptionally long hospital stays. In reality, the facilities being reimbursed at a percentage of charges had been rapidly raising their rates and, despite the presence of deep discounts, the plan was experiencing average per-day charges on many large claims well in excess of its average daily maximum limitation for inpatient hospital services. This meant that the plan was absorbing a great deal of variability from large claims due to payments at very high costs per day.

Options

Now that the plan recognized the circumstances under which it was operating for many large claims, it could now consider the options for managing the risk. Re-contracting with children’s hospitals in its service area at more favorable terms would, of course, be a wonderful solution since it could be structured to significantly reduce the plan’s overall risk. In this instance, however, the plan was not in a position to implement such a provider contracting change. This course of action could certainly be considered in the future.

What could be restructured easily was the reinsurance coverage so that it would provide more coverage for high cost days. The best and most immediate solution for this plan was a higher average daily maximum limitation for inpatient hospital services, coupled with a slightly higher deductible. This allowed the plan to exchange reinsurance premium dollars for better reinsurance reimbursement for both long-stay and high cost-per-day hospital risk.

Although these changes may seem obvious to the party reviewing large claims day in and day out, they were not at all intuitive to the plan’s management staff, who had been spending a majority of their time and effort managing the everyday activities and finances of a health plan. It is, in fact, the purpose of the InSight analysis to bring these circumstances to the forefront when they otherwise would remain hidden in the day-to-day activities of the plan.

“No Floors” Transplant Network

The most important consideration when choosing a transplant network should always be the quality of care delivered. A secondary but important consideration is the cost effectiveness of the network. Contracts for the U.R.N. Transplant Centers of Excellence network and Transplant Access Program (TAP) are structured in a variety of ways, allowing Summit Re customers referral options based on their desire for cost predictability. In order to assist in the contract selection process, U.R.N. has identified a subset of network contracts without floors and aggregated them into a “No Floors” network.

The U.R.N. "No Floors" network consists of programs with transplant contracts that eliminate the possibility of a transplant being paid at a percent of billed charges. This network consists of 51 centers and 237 transplant programs and increases the transparency of network providers without minimum payment provisions. This provides you with greater transplant cost predictability when using a “No Floors” network facility.

Information regarding the “No Floors” network, including a listing of the facilities, can be found on the U.R.N. website (www.urnweb.com) or you can contact Debbie Stubbs, RN, MS, CCM at 260-407-3979 or at dstubbs@summit-re.com.

Employer Stop Loss Expansion

Summit Re has expanded its self-funded marketing and underwriting staff and opened regional offices to provide even better service to you.

Meet Allen Engen

Allen Engen joined us as Regional Vice President in July 2006. Allen has more than 14 years of experience in employer stop loss and health care risk management, specifically in underwriting and sales. He brings a tremendous amount of energy to Summit Re and has hit the ground running. Allen’s clients appreciate his focus on meeting their needs and his ability to seek solutions that may fall “outside the box.” When not at work, he is very active in Boy Scouts and enjoys golfing and fishing.

New Regional Offices

As part of our commitment to you and to the self-funded market, we opened two regional marketing and underwriting offices. Chris Alexander, located in Charlotte, NC, runs the Eastern Employer Stop Loss Office and Allen Engen, located in Minneapolis, MN, heads up our Western Office.

Premium check-up

The last thing any of us wants to hear is, “We’re going to be audited!” We all face scrutiny in one fashion or another—whether it’s CPAs examining our financial statements, the NCQA reviewing the quality of care provided to covered members, or maybe even the IRS checking our tax returns. On a different scale, Summit Re began a review process in 2006 to test the premium paid on its reinsurance and stop loss contracts. Typically, our clients submit premiums on a monthly basis using remittance statements we provide at the start of the agreement year. You simply fill in the number of members at the beginning of the month, multiply that by the applicable premium rates, and send payment for the result. And when it’s received by our accounting department, we review the statement for accuracy—to verify that the correct rates were used and to determine if the census fluctuated significantly from prior month—before forwarding it to the reinsurer. The same process is followed for both HMO reinsurance and stop loss premium.

But up until now, we’ve not tested the underlying data, the membership numbers used to calculate premium. Our reinsurers, in audits of our own operations, thought that such reviews make good business practice, and we agreed. While we trust our clients to submit the appropriate premium agreed upon in the contract, it still makes sense to verify it once in a while.

Now, we won’t visit every client, nor will we come calling every year. Rather, we’ll select a few each year for review and travel to your offices to examine the source documentation. While it’s tempting to schedule clients located in the south for review during February (after all, we are in Indiana), we’ll likely perform the reviews in the summer after the busy winter and spring activity have subsided. And we’ll promise that we’ll be as efficient as possible. Generally, all we need is a couple of days to complete our work.

So, there’s no reason to panic if you get a call saying that we’d like to come and verify your premium numbers…you can save that for when the IRS letter arrives!

Five essentials for evaluating predictive models

Predictive modeling uses your vast store of information to forecast future needs for medical resources. By becoming a knowledgeable purchaser and user of predictive modeling services, you can enjoy a return on your investment in the areas of care management, underwriting and benefit design.

Key Factors for RFP

There's been an explosion of predictive modeling services, each with different methodologies and technology designs. Ineffective predictive modeling— through either poor models or data—wastes your valuable resources and may have a negative impact on your members. However, by understanding how to assess the offerings and apply the technology once you have purchased it, predictive modeling can realize the promise of using information to significantly improve value in health care. The following factors can be used in a Request for Proposal (RFP) to help you select a vendor:

Accuracy

Always ask for the model's R-squared measurement, the commonly accepted measurement of a predictive modeling solution's accuracy. Reliable vendors will know their R-squared measurement.

Vendors should be able to demonstrate both the sensitivity and specificity of their solutions, especially for case management programs. High sensitivity indicates positive predictive value: an ability to identify most of the people who would benefit from a care management intervention. Specificity or negative predictive value is the ability to limit the number of false positives or people who would not benefit from a care management program. Sensitivity and specificity are important so you can assign resources where they're needed most.

Transparency

Transparency means the ability to differentiate among the data points. For care management programs, transparency means clinicians can look underneath the risk scores to the level of individual claims so they can devise appropriate interventions. A risk score is not particularly helpful for care management nurses; they need a way to understand what's driving the risk. To this end, member profiles should include a listing of all episodes of care and the key services involved in their treatment.

To evaluate transparency in your RFP, ask whether the model is a rules-based or neural net solution. In general, you should look for rules-based models, because they match data patterns to clear clinical rules that identify such things as the disease, type of episode, co-morbid conditions, and drug treatments. In a good rules-based model, you can easily identify these risk markers.

In contrast, neural net or so-called black box algorithms are not clinically based and are technically complicated, so you have to possess real data mining expertise to understand how a specific risk score has been compiled. This robs clinicians of many of the advantages that predictive modeling should deliver for care management. Black box algorithms also make it difficult for you to check the validity of the model.

Interoperability

Your RFP should ask whether the vendor supports your relevant database technologies, so they can load the data quickly and reliably into their model's data mart. You should also ask if supporting databases will be exported to your care management, underwriting, and actuarial applications.

Another key question is how the model defines and groups care— by procedure, diagnosis, or episodes of care. Using fully fleshed-out episodes of care results in better predictions since the groups are clinically homogeneous. This approach takes into account all of an individual's underlying clinical factors, not simply a diagnosis or severity indicator.

Supports operational needs

The solution selected must adapt to your operational issues and must generate predictions as often as your business needs dictate. Also, the data used in the solution must be fresh, reliable, and accessible. In particular, it should be refreshed at least monthly to be available for client renewals.

Finally, the solution must be flexible enough to use the data that is available, e.g., medical only, pharmacy only, medical and pharmacy combined. It should also be able to incorporate emerging data sources, such as lab results.

Industry credibility

One of the most obvious markers of industry credibility is market penetration. The RFP should probe whether others use the solution and if they will speak to its value.

Because predictive modeling is changing and improving at a rapid rate, credibility is not just rooted in the solution itself, but in the ongoing support the vendor offers. Upgrades and support require a team that fully understands not just the technology, but also how health care works. The RFP should check whether the support offered includes an integrated team that brings together IT, clinical, actuarial, and underwriting experts.

The information in this article is subject to change without notice. This article contains proprietary information, which is protected by U.S. and international copyright. All rights are reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without the express written permission of Ingenix, Inc. Copyright 2006 Ingenix, Inc.