Making the Most of Third Party Benefits Administrators

Make your HR department more efficient with 3rd party administrators
By Dianne Borgeson Third party benefit administrators are of great use to companies when the resources aren’t available in-house. They run the gamut from negotiating with insurance companies to managing all aspects of your benefit adminstration, freeing up your company to focus on what matters most, the bottom line.

With so many insurance rules and regulations involved with benefit administration, like HIPAA and COBRA, outsourcing your benefits to a plan administrator can protect you from sticky situations these laws create because they're experts on the federal guidelines that drive insurance programs. Using 3rd party HR benefits administrators allows your HR department to spend more time and energy on recruiting, employee issues, retention and other HR-related tasks.

Consider making the most of third party benefits administrators by:

1. Utilizing a third party benefits administrator to negotiate with insurance companies.

2. Employing their products and services to orientate, train and sign up your employees with benefits and renewals.

3. Managing all aspects of your benefits administration from initial set up and maintenance with ongoing reports to managing eligibility and COBRA deadlines for you to claims adjudication.

Use 3rd party benefits providers to negotiate with insurance companies

A third party administrator (TPA) works to obtain annual renewal quotes for your company from various insurance companies to get you the best bang for your buck, simplifying the work involved for you. They have the negotiating skills and expertise necessary to handle this difficult and mundane task.
Try:  Employee Benefit Administrators (EBA) is a full service benefit broker offering a wide range of consulting services in health insurance, flexible spending and medical reimbursement accounts, complete health insurance packages, COBRA administration and more. Partnering with leading insurance companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Guardian and Met Life, EBA can negotiate the best rates possible for your company and your employees. Colonial Healthcare works with you coordinating renewal negotiations with leading insurance providers. Look to Paragon Business Services if you're a smaller company, as they negotiate with health insurance providers to offer your company coverages often only larger corporations can afford.

Empower employees to manage their own benefits with tools offered by a benefits administrator

HR professionals are constantly putting out fires and with so little time on hand, outsourcing the tedious task of explaining your company's benefit packages allows your HR department more time to handle more strategic HR initiatives at hand. Third party administrators offer resources to help employees manage all aspects of their benefits (from signing and renewals to claim processing) quickly and easily. Since this is their specialty, they can answer difficult questions that can sometimes bog HR departments down because of the laws involved. You may also find third party benefit administrators will come directly to your office to coordinate renewals and benefit Q and A sessions with your employees.
Try:  Benefit Concepts provides online tools to help employees manage their benefit plans and offers phone and online support to answer benefit questions your employees have. AmCheck has an employee hotline to answer your employees benefit questions in addition to other managing tools. Enwisen's communication tools and software empowers employees to manage their own benefits, anytime, anywhere.

Hire a third party benefits administrator to manage all aspects of your company's benefits

Third party benefits management includes many detailed tasks from paperwork like reporting, billing, issuing id cards and plan building to eligibility management on new hires to claims adjudication. Free your HR department up of these time consuming tasks by outsourcing to a TPA.
Try:  Select Benefit Administrators provides complete third party administrator services that include a variety of solutions from problem resolution on administrative functions to resolving medical, dental, Section 125, COBRA and other claim issues with employees. In addition, they manage new hire eligibility, providing useful reports to help you stay on top of all benefit administration issues. Administaff is another full service third party administration provider handling all aspects of managing employee benefits.

• When meeting with 3rd party benefits administrators, obtain as much information as you need. The provider should answer even your most basic questions, leaving you with little doubt that they can communicate efficiently with you, your employees and other management staff.