Shaving Customer Costs Online

Web-based "self-services" such as online prescription ordering and benefit-eligibility checking are increasingly popular among managed-care organizations. In fact, a new survey indicates that site visits have risen about 8% a month for the last six months.

Among the most popular new online features, according to the IT consulting firm Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, is letting patients order prescription drugs. Cap Gemini's semiannual survey looks in on about 100 managed-care organizations, including small regional nonprofit health plans and large national commercial health plans. The most recent survey wrapped up in October.

Forty-four percent of the plans surveyed offer prescription services, compared with 14% in March. Fully 65% of managed-care companies let doctors check benefit eligibility of patients. These services can cut customer-service costs by reducing call volume to plans, says Tim Williamson, VP of Cap Gemini's health practice.

And managed-care companies can boost their return on investment even more if they embrace online collaboration--allowing patients and caregivers to E-mail questions or concerns to the companies. Of course, a portion of any potential savings will evaporate if the site is hard to use or there aren't trained people available to help talk a visitor through a new procedure occasionally, Williamson says.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Inc. sees the demand--and potential ROI--of Web-based self-services. The health plan serves 750,000 members in New England. "Physicians' offices love being able to check eligibility of patients online--it saves them a lot of time. Rather than waiting on the phone in a customer-service queue for 20 seconds, they can check the eligibility of five patients online in a matter of seconds," says David Segal, senior VP of customer service and operations.

Segal says there are savings to doing it right, but "the biggest ROI is customer satisfaction." Online self-service features, he says, are "difficult to measure in dollar and cents, but they are very much demanded by our customers."