Unum continues to refine its focus on the hospital segment in the group, voluntary and individual disability markets. Its Health Care Practice team, led by
Tiffany Breau-Metivier, director of market development, is helping to create best practices that support new sales, service and persistency.
It’s easy to see why we are focused on the health care market. Unum provides group benefits to more than 1,500 hospitals, representing more than one million health care employees. In the National Client Group (NCG), healthcare makes up the largest customer segment with one in five customers coming from the health care industry. Additionally, Unum provides voluntary benefits to more than 700 hospitals customers, making it Unum’s largest VB segment.
As we focus on this market, our goal is clear: deliver innovative solutions that help hospitals address their cost and patient care challenges, while making it easier for them to do business with Unum. From training Unum employees on the challenges that hospitals face, to streamlining the services we offer, we are developing solutions to meet the unique needs of these health care customers.
“Hospitals want to work with carriers that have experience working with clients in the health care field,” Tiffany explained. “To ensure that we are meeting their needs, we are investing in training and knowledge management tools for our disability specialists and claims teams. These tools will help them gain a deeper knowledge of this industry and its unique requirements.”
Hospitals are “staffing sensitive” operations, and, due to employee demographics and work demands, they usually experience higher levels of employee absence. Couple this with the need to provide around-the-clock patient care, and it’s no surprise hospitals want to work with a carrier that can provide fast, effective claims management and support.
For our health care clients, Unum is now offering 24/7 intake and employer notification when a claim is filed. Regardless of the time of the day, within three to five minutes of receiving a claim request, an email is sent to the appropriate contact at the hospital notifying them of the claim and the employee’s absence.
“The goal of this offering is to help the hospital find a replacement as soon as possible by alerting them to the claim as quickly as we can,” Tiffany said. Additionally, Unum is now involving a nurse case manager in all complex clinician claims. The nurse case manager will interact directly with the clinician claimant and work alongside the disability benefits specialist to help answer claimant questions and provide an additional layer of customer support.
“This added clinical support is a natural extension of our value proposition,” said Tiffany. “Hospitals aren’t just looking for vendors they’re looking for partners. And claimants that are clinically-trained are more comfortable talking to others who are well-versed in their diagnosis. It’s about providing a customer experience that demonstrates we understand not just the industry, but those who work in the industry.”
Many hospitals these days are interested in transitioning away from traditional sick bank models that allow employees to accrue up to 26 weeks in sick time to use for short-term leave.
“These models can be cumbersome to administer and costly for the employer,” said Tiffany. “They can create gaps for less-tenured employees and because they are not always administered consistently, they can also raise compliance issues for the hospital.”
The Health Care Practice Team is working on a consultative service that will help hospitals better understand the trends that influence their current and potential costs. Through this tailored and customized approach, Unum can provide a roadmap to help control these costs that are unique to a hospital’s workforce and culture.
The Team is also looking at ways to measure the impact of programs that help reduce lost time, such as return-to-work programs, health and productivity reporting and sick-bank program alternatives.
“We partner with our hospital customers in such unique ways to help them minimize costs and limit absences while still improving patient care,” said Tiffany. “So it’s important for us to be able to measure the value of the solutions we can provide.”
There are more things to come from this team. They continue to look at developing additional programs to address cost, quality and patient satisfaction for hospitals, with a focus on the aging workforce and nurse engagement and productivity. They are also looking for way to help support physicians, such as new plan design offerings and integrated support services.