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Author: Jashan Ahuja

Error management with Ideon, Part 2: Auto-reconciliation

Posted on by Jashan Ahuja

By Jashan Ahuja
Group Product Manager – Enrollment

In Part 1 of our error management blog series, we explored Ideon’s ability to process errors in a centralized and consistent way. Now, in Part 2, we delve into our industry-leading auto-reconciliation feature, which proactively identifies discrepancies between platform and carrier systems.

It’s a scenario all too common in the group benefits industry: a benefits administration (BenAdmin) platform sends enrollment data to a carrier via an EDI file and waits a week or more — with no visibility into whether the information was accepted — only to receive back an unreadable report of errors and discrepancies.

Now imagine a world with lightning-fast data exchange, two-way communication, and seamless reconciliation between platforms and carriers. The platform would receive a notification within minutes that lists all discrepancies between the two systems.

Ideon’s automatic reconciliation system makes the above not only possible, but easy to implement and scalable across carriers. It’s an industry-first feature that offers the capability of proactive data reconciliation between the platform and carrier systems.

In our prior blog, we explored Ideon’s ability to standardize and expose errors generated by carrier systems, transforming them into a consistent, human-readable, and actionable format. That crucial feature forms the foundation for closing the feedback loop with carriers. But Ideon doesn’t stop there. In this blog, we examine auto-reconciliation, a revolutionary process that identifies and surfaces discrepancies in near real-time, even before the data has been sent to the carrier. 

What is auto-reconciliation?

Auto-reconciliation is an essential component of Ideon’s data exchange process, significantly streamlining the enrollment workflow for carriers and benefits platforms alike. This innovative process flags discrepancies before data reaches the carrier’s system, dramatically reducing downstream errors that could otherwise wreak havoc on carrier operations—and members.

Here’s how it works: Ideon’s reconciliation engine proactively pulls all member and coverage information for a group from the carrier, converts it to our data model, and compares it to the platform data on a field-by-field basis.

The comparison encompasses 18 data points, also known as “discrepancy parameters,” including demographic data (e.g., birth date, SSN), coverage details (e.g., plan start date, plan volume), or even the existence of a member or their coverage in one system but not the other. We’re able to specify the source of any discrepancies for our partners and provide both platform and carrier values, creating a clear, actionable pathway to resolution.

Consider the example below, where a carrier’s system contains a different birth date compared to the one entered on the benefits platform. Without validation, this discrepancy would inevitably lead to errors for this subscriber. However, by matching the carrier’s existing information with the enrollment record, Ideon can promptly detect the discrepancy and return the record to the platform for correction.

"errors": [
    {
      "id": "a37ecd06-5d97-46e4-9b4e-dcde6a03246f",
      "member_id": "a37ecd06-5d97-46e4-9b4e-dcde6a03246f",
      "plan_id": "a37ecd06-5d97-46e4-9b4e-dcde6a03246f",
      "coverage_period_id": "a37ecd06-5d97-46e4-9b4e-dcde6a03246f",
      "discrepancy": {
        "parameter": "birth date",
        "carrier": "1/1/93",
        "platform": "2/1/93"
      }
    ]

 

During our processing, we reconcile 18 different critical fields, as well as verify the presence of the member in the carrier’s database. 

Annual earnings

Birth date

Coverage

Dependent

Employment end date

Employment start date

Employment status

Gender 

Marital status

Plan ID

Plan end date

Plan start date

Plan volume

Primary care provider

Residential address

Social security number

Subscriber

Wage frequency

 

Additional features

Ideon’s auto-reconciliation system boasts several features for fast, accurate data exchange, smooth operations, and an enhanced member experience.

Deduplication

Automatic reconciliation operates daily, comparing new discrepancies against open ones from the previous run and resolving any that are no longer relevant. This keeps carrier and platform systems in sync with current data and ensures the list of open discrepancies is directly relevant.

Frequency + Timing

Automatic Reconciliation runs as frequently as daily for carriers supporting an API-based, automatic census retrieval. Resolved discrepancies are closed every morning, while newly identified ones are opened.

We are currently expanding our auto-reconciliation functionality with carrier partners that don’t yet support a daily census.

As part of our reconciliation process, we carefully consider the timing of data in and out of our system. When our system receives a data element that hasn’t been sent to the carrier yet, our reconciliation logic takes this into account by comparing the carrier’s data with the previous version of that data field. Once the field is transmitted to the carrier, it is incorporated into the next reconciliation cycle, with a buffer for carrier processing time. This thoughtful approach prevents noise, such as unwarranted and erroneous discrepancies.

Surfacing Discrepancies

All actionable enrollment discrepancies—originating from either auto-reconciliation or carrier error reports—are returned in a consistent, normalized format. Partners can access this information through:

      • direct GET requests via our API endpoints
      • proactive push notifications using webhooks, or
      • our standardized Enrollment Discrepancies CSV, delivered periodically

By centralizing Enrollment Discrepancies, we enable a more efficient and streamlined operational process, allowing benefits platforms to view errors generated by carriers and the results of auto-reconciliation all in one place.


Impact

Leveraging our unique, central position between platform and carrier systems, we have quantified the volume of out-of-sync data. After analyzing data from hundreds of groups and thousands of members, we found that about 8% of employee enrollments have a critical coverage issue, i.e. incorrect coverage dates, plan information, or birth date, or they’re missing entirely from either the carrier or platform system. For one specific platform-carrier combination, we saw 10.3% of subscribers with at least one error that affects enrollment accuracy. Additionally, 80% of groups with more than 20 subscribers had one or more critical errors.

Overall, proactively identifying coverage-affecting errors is critical for reducing inaccurate enrollments and downstream issues. Automatic reconciliation allows groups to detect and resolve discrepancies before the initial transmission to the carrier. This improves success rates for the initial transition of groups into production and allows for faster, more accurate group setups, ultimately resulting in a better member experience.

Coming soon – Part 3: Account structure consolidation and mapping

Enrolling members in the correct plans with the correct carriers all starts with precise, streamlined setup processes. In the next blog in this series, we’ll detail how Ideon enhances a platform’s mapping capabilities, making it easier to configure complex group setups when employers have multiple plans, classes, and divisions.

Error management with Ideon, Part 1: A centralized, consistent experience

Posted on by Jashan Ahuja

By Jashan Ahuja
Group Product Manager – Enrollment

In Part 1 of a series detailing our enrollment API’s features and capabilities, Ideon’s product team examines error reporting and management — how it works, what benefits platforms can expect, and the advantages of a centralized workflow.

Historically, it’s been an operational and technical nightmare for benefits platforms to exchange group and employee enrollment information with medical and voluntary carriers. No matter the carrier’s method of data exchange — EDI, API, portals, etc. — getting data from platform to carrier was rarely a simple task.

But once connected, it’s smooth sailing, right? Not quite. As benefits platforms’ operational teams know all too well, sending data is only part of the equation. The carrier must accept and confirm the change, and that’s where things start to get really complicated. Usually, the biggest challenge is handling and rectifying enrollment data errors—every carrier sends discrepancies in a different format, and their error reports are rarely human-readable.

At Ideon, we’re powering a new era of connection between carriers and tech platforms. One that’s better, faster, and more secure than the industry status quo. In this blog, we explain Ideon’s error-handling features, from standardizing carrier error messages to resolving errors via API, and how they create a far more efficient and accurate enrollment experience.

What are enrollment discrepancies?

It’s hard to find someone with experience in benefits who doesn’t think that data errors and discrepancies are a problem. Some examples include account set up issues, incorrect employee demographic information (social security number, birth date, etc.), coverage date errors, and more.

Today, most carriers report errors in non-standard formats, often via email and spreadsheets. These reports are usually delivered on a weekly basis, and the information they contain is rarely easy to understand. The result is a slow, manual, and resource-intensive error-handling process that poses a challenge to benefits platforms and their operations teams.

What’s the impact?

We analyzed the data from hundreds of groups and thousands of members and found that about 8% of employee enrollments have a critical coverage issue, i.e. incorrect coverage dates, plan information, or birth date, or they’re missing entirely from either the carrier or platform system. Importantly, more than 80% of groups with 20+ members have critical errors.

And these errors have significant ramifications for the entire benefits ecosystem – from carriers and benefits platforms, to brokers, employers, and employees. The downstream impact ranges from lost revenue and broker commissions, to operational inefficiencies and employee experience issues.

Carriers are missing out on millions in potential premium. In one recent migration of about 200,000 employees onto the Ideon platform, our technology identified errors resulting in nearly $1 million in lost premium for the carrier.

For the employers in that migration, we saved more than 30K employees from potential coverage issues — all from one migration of approximately 200K lives. Ultimately, inaccurate data can cause serious problems for employees. Everyone in our industry can relate to the countless access-to-care issues that occur during open enrollment because of erroneous data. Or, imagine a life insurance claim for an employee who wasn’t enrolled accurately — there would be an emotional and financial impact on a grieving family, while the employer and platform would likely suffer reputational harm.

For a detailed look at how inaccurate data impacts every benefits industry stakeholder, read this recent blog by Ideon CEO Michael Levin.

Enrollment discrepancies via Ideon

The processes outlined above remain the industry status quo: manual error handling through spreadsheets and emails, inconsistent carrier formats, and a barrage of harmful errors that affect all stakeholders.

At Ideon, we’ve developed a revolutionary alternative for benefits platforms where enrollment discrepancies are centralized, standardized, and actionable. Here are three ways our solution differs from the typical process:

  • Many-to-one – Ideon translates all of the enrollment “errors” generated by carriers into a uniform and ingestible format.
  • Standardized messaging – Each enrollment discrepancy has a “message,” which is a standardized version of the carrier error translated into a human-readable format.
  • Centralized communication – Benefits platforms view and resolve all enrollment discrepancies, from multiple carriers, directly through Ideon’s API endpoint, allowing for a streamlined and centralized user experience and eliminating the need for other communication (e.g. e-mails and slack messages).

Centralized error management via Ideon’s API

Ideon’s error reporting solution helps platforms prioritize and rectify discrepancies by providing insight into the severity of each discrepancy and who’s responsible for fixing it. Regardless of the carrier or the original data source, platforms get a consistent, simple API experience.

In this section, we examine Ideon’s key error management features and highlight how platforms interact with our API.

(Image: Example of an API response sent from Ideon to a benefits platform. The response details an unresolved enrollment discrepancy, the party responsible for rectifying the issue, and other pertinent information.)

Severity – For each enrollment discrepancy we expose a Severity (“Info”, “Warning”, or “Failure”) that highlights the impact of the issue. A “Failure” enrollment discrepancy indicates a blocker to a member’s enrollment, whereas “Info” and “Warning” enrollment discrepancies provide visibility into informational updates or future changes required, for example when a dependent is due to age out in a couple of months.

Assignment – Each enrollment discrepancy has a Responsible Party and can be assigned to “Ideon” or “Partner”. This provides visibility into enrollment discrepancies that are currently being managed by our Enrollment Operations team and allows users to easily identify enrollment discrepancies that they need to address.

Status – Enrollment discrepancies have a status of “Unresolved”, “Resolved”, or “Returned”. This allows our teams to stay in-sync on each individual enrollment discrepancy. When we initially surface an enrollment discrepancy, it is in an “Unresolved” status. The status is updated to “Returned” when any comments are added and “Resolved” when a resolution message is provided.

Resolution – Partners are able to add a resolution message to an enrollment discrepancy via a simple API endpoint. This updates the status of the enrollment discrepancy to “Resolved”. If the issue still remains when the carrier re-attempts to process the data then the enrollment discrepancy can be reverted back to an “Unresolved” status so the history is retained.

Comments – Partners are able to interact with our operations team entirely via the enrollment discrepancies API endpoint by threading comments directly on the original enrollment discrepancy. This allows for efficient interaction between our respective Operational teams without needing additional tools or e-mails.

API and webhook transmission – Partners can pull down enrollment discrepancies directly from our API via a GET endpoint. We also provide enrollment discrepancies via Webhooks or a standard periodic CSV report.

(Image: Example of an API response sent from Ideon to a benefits platform. The response details a RESOLVED enrollment discrepancy.)

In summary, managing and rectifying enrollment data errors and discrepancies is a critical aspect of the benefits workflow. At Ideon, we understand the pain points of the industry and have developed a solution that streamlines the process by: standardizing error messaging; delivering a centralized resolution experience for benefits platforms; and helping them prioritize and, ultimately, resolve each discrepancy. Platforms can easily manage enrollment discrepancies, from multiple carriers, directly through our API endpoint, allowing for a streamlined experience without back-and-forth email communication.

Coming soon — Part 2: Auto reconciliation overview

Standardizing errors is a big step forward, but did you know Ideon can proactively identify them whether or not the carrier actually reports them? In the next blog in this series, we’ll dive into Ideon’s auto reconciliation feature, an industry-first capability that automatically compares data in the carrier and platform systems, surfacing discrepancies in near real-time.