CHARLESTON, SC – As more and more Americans adopt a “do-it-yourself” attitude toward the healthcare market, providers are realizing that they can’t sit back and wait for the business to come to them.
And Benefitfocus, which provides software and services for the healthcare benefits market through “quote to claim” technology, wants to take the initiative.
“The consumers are really beginning to get engaged in the discussion,” says Shawn Jenkins, CEO of the Charleston, S.C.-based company. “It’s really kind of a brave new world where all of us are starting to say, ‘How can I manage the finances of my health care?’”
For a company that began with eEnrollment, eExchange and eBilling, three products designed to allow large groups and companies maneuver more fluidly through the benefits market, that means taking a more individual approach. Recently, Benefitfocus introduced eDirect, which allows individual consumers to shop for and compare insurance options, and eSales, which allows insurance brokers to connect more directly with their customers by quoting and enrolling online.
eDirect “takes it to the next level and brings it right into somebody’s house,” says Jenkins of a product that was launched last December. He expects eDirect to “take off” this year as more and more health plans embrace flexibility and allow their members to design healthcare coverage based on their needs.
Earlier this year, Benefitfocus announced a partnership with ConnectYourCare, a Hunt Valley, Md.-based provider of consumer directed healthcare (CDH) account management solutions. The deal will integrate ConnectYourCare’s health plan administration platform with Benefitfocus’ data integration and benefits software, allowing employers and health plan administrators to create flexible, account-based benefit solutions for their employees.
Looking toward the future, Jenkins sees the need for investment in the whole media platform, including video, blogs and community-based tools. Among the company’s more recent offerings is icyou, a virtual community launched last September that offers hundreds of user-generated healthcare videos – both professional and amateur – posted online every week. Company officials announced the launch of the latest phase of the Beta site on March 3.
As healthcare consumers become more aware of their options, Jenkins says, they’re going to want more information, delivered in easier formats.
“We’ll be gathering data like you cannot imagine,” he added, noting the company expects to spend some $8 million this year in capital for data storage. That data will be used, he said, to change market behaviors toward healthcare, to better predict and plan for healthcare trends and to market products better.