February 15, 2012 by Ani Young
As healthcare reform moves onward, National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) accreditation is garnering more celebrity by all players within the healthcare space.
Some payers and providers fear it; consumers praise it; and at Healthx we aim to help all of our clients attain it.
But what does NCQA accreditation mean, exactly? Most consumers who are thrown by the ins and outs of the healthcare industry have no idea. But the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is considered the most stringent and influential health plan accreditation programs in the industry, and helps ensure that the physicians and insurers you enlist are up to par.
Unfortunately not all health plans make the cut. But many big-time employers refuse to do business with plans that don’t earn NCQA’s stamp of approval. Yea - it’s that important.
Most of our current clients rely on Healthx technology to help them meet many of NCQA’s elite standards. Below are the specific accreditation standards we help our clients achieve:
Health Appraisals – Plans need to help members evaluate their health and overall life risks, and develop ways to reduce these risks.
Self-Management Tools – Insurers must provide clear self-management tools accessible by phone, print, and online portals that address issues like healthy weight maintenance, smoking cessation programs, exercise and diet guidance, stress management, alcohol/drug avoidance, symptoms of depression, etc.
Functionality of Claims Processing – The Plan must offer members both telephone and online service with access to Claims information.
Personalized Information on Health Plan Services – A Health Plan’s healthcare portal must offer members the functionality to request or reorder their ID card or change primary care physicians.
Innovations in Member Services – Insurers should be seen as advocates of healthcare IT use that improves the overall healthcare experience for members. This is determined by how progressive an organization proves itself in the health insurance technology field.
Encouraging Wellness and Prevention – Plans need to deliver wellness follow-ups to members based on their specific member information.
Ultimately, providing easier access to providers on critical medical and insurance information makes for a better quality assurance standard. Our payer technology solutions are based on helping organizations achieve this necessary accreditation on multiple levels. Healthx portals are a place where consumers can access critical healthcare information like Benefits, Eligibility, Claims statuses, etc.
Our offering includes many more applications for increased engagement, including a robust Wellness program that encompasses all of the NCQA requirements you see above. The Wellness Program aligns with the core concept of reform: creating a healthier country. Need to lose weight? We have a program for that. Trying to stay on track with your diabetes care? There’s a program for that. And the list goes on and on.
NCQA is important to payers and members alike, therefore it’s important to us. We continue to develop our technology around these quality standards.
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February 7, 2012 by Healthx Marketing
Indianapolis, IN – February 7, 2012 – Progressive cloud computing company Healthx is helping forge a home for healthcare within the mobile technology market.
Today Healthx releases its much-awaited Healthx enabled Mobile Applications, which caters to Payers and aims to connect members with their benefits and healthcare information. Healthx clients will receive their own uniquely branded app available for easy download in the iTunes, Windows, Android, and RIM stores.
Smart phone users will gain access to their vital Healthx Healthcare Portal information, including a Provider Directory, ID card view, Medical Claims information, Eligibility information, FSA balances, and Secure Messaging.
Payer clients will own the app, which will display each organization’s specific logos and branding; Healthx will simply manage the technology via its cloud services. Healthcare payers can expect the highest level of secure encryption from the technology company, which is both HIPAA-compliant and SAS 70 audited.
The Healthx enabled Mobile Apps will function like all other apps found in the app stores. The mobile portal is quick and easy to download to the most popular mobile devices, and is intuitively designed for any users accessing their mobile health data for the first time.
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February 3, 2012 by Mark Weston
Reported to cost anywhere from $10 to $30 per call, administering certain forgot username services or password retrieval can be a very costly and frustrating endeavor. Upwards of 80% of people have forgotten a password used for an online account, which is exactly what most help desk calls are regarding. And that comes as no surprise when the average online user has anywhere between seven and 25 online accounts they log into daily.
We know that the less frequently a password is used, the more likely it will have to be reset at next use - meaning users will always require assistance. Expecting this assistance to be 100% self-serve is presuming too much, but there are definitely ways to improve the chances of user success at independent online password recovery – like decreasing the time an administrator spends with users that failed to assist themselves.
Healthx has always had a self-administered “Forgot” service, where users could retrieve their lost usernames and reset their passwords. But by listening to client feedback, monitoring our Forgot service success rate, and looking at industry standards, we have developed three new amenities to further increase user success rates in self-retrieving usernames and resetting passwords, as well as reducing call time for admins when users fail:
Email Validation Service: Valid and accessible email accounts have been identified as an obstacle to username retrieval and password resets. Oftentimes this information is faked, forgotten, or is not understood by the end-user; but online account recovery depends on it. With the email validation service turned on, users are required to prove the email address listed for the account is valid and that they have access to it.
Splash Service: We have set up a scheduled splash screen for Account Recovery, allowing users to easily update key information in the future event that they forget their username or password.
Forgot 2.0 Service: We have made multiple enhancements to the new Forgot service, utilizing current industry standards for better security, a better self-service success rate, and reduction in administrator time to service users that fail to self-serve online:
• Online username retrieval without email account
• Never sending username or temporary password via email
• Contact support email with useful tracking information appended
Watch a demo of all the new Forgot 2.0 features!
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January 24, 2012 by Greg Moriarty
As a technologist at a technology company, I often feel torn between the old and the new.
On one hand, we at Healthx have to enable access to the services we provide to as many of our end users as possible. Due to the wide-ranging demographics of the people we serve (primarily those covered by a health insurance plan), this usually means supporting old technologies far beyond their prime. Unlike that of, say, a developer of office productivity software or video games, we cannot make any assumptions about the age, level of education, socioeconomic status, or connectivity of our users. While not everyone has health insurance, those that do span nearly every demographic you can come up with. Therefore, we cannot draw any conclusions on the technologies being used to access our services. Despite advances like email, text messaging, and the web, “technologies” such as the traditional telephone, fax, and even the U.S. Postal Service are still alive and widely used. (Well, I’ll have to check on that last one and get back to you.)
On the other hand, we need to constantly demonstrate that we are on the cutting edge in terms of adopting the latest trends. Do we have a smartphone app? Do we communicate via social media? Do we stay abreast of the latest trends in software development, security, database systems, and so on?
While some of our offerings (such as the Healthx Communications System) allow the end user to choose the technology they are most comfortable with (phone, fax, email, SMS, USPS), other offerings are by their nature “one size fits all”. The most obvious example is our web portals.
When dealing with a single interface (our websites) accessible by a wide range of browsers, both old and new, we must constantly be aware of the technological “generation gap”. Sadly this usually means the old trumps the new. If a certain technology will not work within the oldest browser we support, then this often means passing on the technology, no matter how much benefit it provides. Despite the fact that web technologies (HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.) march forward, web developers like myself often feel like we’ll be stuck in the twentieth century forever (when browsers were invented), lest we alienate some of our users.
One of the most liberating advancements to come along in my sixteen years as a software developer is the mobile-optimized website (MOW). MOWs are sites that typically run alongside a normal website. They typically provide much, if not all, of the same content that the normal website does, but tailor that content specifically to a mobile device (rendering for a smaller screen, using touch instead of mouse clicks, etc.). MOWs have mostly been brought about by the advent of smartphones, but also by tablet computers and various other devices different from the traditional desktop computer (such as Google TV). Developing for the “mobile experience” allows developers like myself to, in many ways, be liberated from the old. To begin with, mobile devices like iPhone and Android are relatively new. When considering whether or not to use a new feature of HTML5, there is no need to worry that an old version of the iPhone from 1996 will not support the feature. Secondly, despite the cries of those who lament our modern “throw away” culture, the average lifespan of a mobile phone is only a couple of years. This ensures that the devices used to access a MOW will march forward with progress. Lastly, the three device types I mentioned, and even some modern desktop browsers, automatically update to the latest version without requiring any user action. What all of this means for us is that we can design our mobile-optimized websites (and corresponding mobile apps) with less concern about needing to appeal to the “lowest common denominator” of devices. Features such as geolocation (where you can locate an in-network healthcare provider closest to you, without having to type in your current location) would not have been possible just a couple years ago, and are still not available for the vast majority of internet users using older web browsers. Yet, we aren’t hamstrung into passing over this new technology in our MOW, because we have a reasonable expectation that it will be available to those using our MOW. (Though, we’ve still allowed you to type in your address if, for example, you have GPS turned off.) To a lesser extent, we can expect the audience to be a bit more segmented. Owners of mobile devices tend to be more comfortable with technology, for example. And certainly they have access to the internet!
While liberating within the micro world of the mobile-optimized website, we still must always continue to support the tried and true technologies. MOWs will not replace traditional websites any more than faxes replaced mail. As a result, all the services we provide through our forthcoming mobile-optimized websites are also available in our regular “desktop” website, and assumingly always will be. This just means that we’re developing, testing, documenting, and supporting yet another technology, and yet another way to access our services. But then that’s what we’re all about at Healthx.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to check to see if the mail is (still) here.
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January 16, 2012 by Ani Young
Our respected financial adviser, Berkery Noyes, recently sang Healthx praises in the latest Medical Marketing & Media article.
The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform is garnering significant exposure within the healthcare IT industry. Unlike other static healthcare management solutions, SaaS platforms have the unique ability to integrate into a firm’s health exchange systems.
Firms like Berkery Noyes are familiar with the rising popularity of our healthcare portal technology. “SaaS providers are constantly updating their systems to reflect knowledge learned from one customer and making it available for all customers,” says managing director Jon Krieger. “So their services are constantly updated for regulatory compliance, health insurer benefit and plan design information, which evolves very rapidly. You’re basically putting your system in the hands of someone who focuses on this little niche and they’ve created a platform that learns.”
The increasing need for affordable electronic data storage, made standard with the introduction of Electronic Medical Records (EMR), has driven the SaaS movement. Thanks to cloud technology, Healthx is an attractive option for payers and providers alike due to the cost savings our solutions provide.
The explosion of technology in general is helping propel the popularity of SaaS as well, most noticeably in the medical information management markets. Since smart phones, tablets, and other mobile technologies have become a way of life, it was only a matter of time before SaaS technology did too.
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