Several Michigan-based health plans are reducing administrative costs by communicating with customers and brokers on a Web platform designed by Covisint.
The Detroit-based subsidiary of the Compuware Corporation has made available its ExchangeLink platform to the newly formed Michigan Association of Health Plans (MAHP), which will use the platform to communicate with each other and offer online access to customers for member eligibility, claims status and other functions.
"Covisint's ecosystem approach enables the sharing of healthcare information from all of our members' systems, regardless of how simple or how complex their current technology infrastructure is," said Rick Murdoch, MAHP's executive vice president. "This ... partnership positions MAHP member plans well ahead of the healthcare reform curve for simplification, efficiency and meaningful use."
With healthcare spending accounting for roughly one-sixth of the nation's gross domestic product, or about $2.3 trillion, and healthcare reform efforts focused on cutting unnecessary costs, health plans and insurers are taking a hard look at administrative costs. Health information exchanges such as that provided by Covisint offer them an opportunity to reduce paper costs and duplicative efforts aimed at getting vital information to and from current and prospective customers, as well as providers.
"From the federal to the state to the local level, everyone is seeking new and better ways to improve how health information is securely exchanged and made available at the point of care," said Brett Furst, Covisint's vice president of healthcare. "It's all about serving patients better through secure information access and cutting into the billions of dollars traditionally wasted due to past inefficiencies."
Covisint officials say they designed ExchangeLink as a single sign-on portal for individual physicians and practices, giving them quick and secure access to patient data and disparate health plans. This platform-as-a-service approach now serves more than 1,100 healthcare entities around the nation, including physicians, state departments, health plans, hospitals and Medicaid programs.
"As an industry we must continue to focus on opportunities to improve the quality and efficiencies of healthcare," said Barry Coffield, associate vice president of enterprise operations for MAHP member Priority Health. "By leveraging Covisint ExchangeLink, MAHP will quantifiably improve the way 'the business of healthcare' gets done statewide."
Along with Priority Health, other Michigan-based health plans participating in MAHP are the Health Alliance Plan, HealthPlus, Molina, Great Lakes Health Plan, Midwest Health Plan and MPHI.