Three Little Known Opportunities to Maximize Value and Reduce Costs in Digital Mailrooms: What Health Plans Need to Know
Don’t let common misconceptions hold your health plan back from experiencing the benefits
By Vidhya Bhat, Chief Product Officer of Digital Transformation, Imagenet
Over the past few years, I’ve met with hundreds of health plan leaders, and these conversations have almost always focused on one core question: Can outsourcing to your digital mailroom services help us save money and improve quality?
The answer, of course, is yes. Transitioning to our digital mailroom—which takes on all aspects of processing paper claims and other documents—presents a significant untapped opportunity for health plans to reduce waste, accelerate processes, enhance quality, and meet regulatory requirements.
Still, despite the numerous benefits provided by an effective digital mailroom services partner, many health plans have yet to outsource.
What’s holding them back? While several factors are at play, I’ve found that many health plan leaders share some common misconceptions about digital mailrooms. Unfortunately, these misconceptions can sometimes prevent them from considering digital mailroom partnerships.
Three Common Misconceptions
Misconception #1: “It doesn’t make sense to transition to a digital mailroom partner because paper is going away.”
While many paper claims and documents have transitioned to electronic over the past few years, health plans are still processing a significant amount of paper each day—and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
According to the 2023 CAQH Index Report, which tracks plan and provider adoption of electronic administrative transactions in the U.S., the percentage of paper-based claims has remained at as high as 4% over the past few years. At the same time, the overall number of claims being processed has exploded, from just 18 billion in 2014 to 55.1 billion in 2023. That means health plans are managing more claims overall, including more paper-based claims. Paper is not going away—in fact, the amount of paper your plan is processing is very likely to grow over the next few years.
Misconception #2: “Digital mailrooms are just for digitizing paper claims—the scope of impact is too small for us to consider.”
While the phrase “digital mailroom” is typically associated with transforming paper claims and other documents to electronic (commonly referred to as P2E), that’s just one of many services an effective digital mailroom partner can provide. In fact, plans are often surprised by our breadth of capabilities.
In addition to paper, we can capture and process data from any source, including email, fax, secure file transfer software protocol (SFTP) portals. We also provide a proprietary cloud-based document imaging archival and retrieval system for scanned documents so that plans can easily access and annotate documents and review audit trails. In addition, we can provide a centralized database for claims-related workflow management, which provides additional efficiency benefits.
We love when plans share their biggest administrative challenges with us during digital mailroom conversations. That often reveals opportunities for us to create customized solutions to meet their needs, beyond P2E. We recently met with a prospect who was focused solely on our digital mailroom services, but they were thrilled to find out that we could also help them with EDI to image generation. Another recent prospect shared they were struggling to maintain efficient and compliant processes for returned mail. We’ve stepped in to handle this for them.
Misconception #3: “Outsourcing to a digital mailroom partner is too expensive. We can’t afford to make a change.”
Any health plan leader who is concerned about the costs associated with a digital mailroom should assemble a list of these items associated with paper claims and document processing within their organization. They should then weigh the ROI of a digital mailroom partner against those items. I’ve conducted this exercise with many health plan leaders (and I would be happy to assist yours), and the ROI associated with a digital mailroom is undeniable.
To help you get started, consider that with a digital mailroom service provider, your plan will no longer need to:
House, maintain, staff, and manage a mailroom facility
Purchase, maintain, and manage equipment such as printers, scanners, and shredders
Allocate staff members to pick up, sort, prepare, and scan documents
Allocate staff member to extract information from documents and create 837 EDI files
Allocate staff members to shred and dispose of documents
Final Thoughts
While it’s important to seriously evaluate whether a digital mailroom services partner is the right step for your plan, don’t let these three common misconceptions hold you back. For most health plans, outsourcing to a digital mailroom partner presents a great opportunity for saving costs and enhancing quality. Continuing to run a digital mailroom in-house will continue to place an unnecessary strain on your resources and distract your team members from other, high priority tasks. Outsourcing to an expert—whose core day-to-day focus is enhancing digital mailroom services—will make a significant impact.
If your plan is considering outsourcing, it’s crucial to remember that not all digital mailroom partners will be equally effective and impactful. If your health plan is embarking on a search for a digital mailroom partner, check out this list of 11 must-have capabilities to seek out. (hyperlink to capabilities blog)
Would you like to learn more about Imagenet’s digital mailroom services?
Vidhya Bhat, Imagenet’s Chief Product Officer of Digital Transformation, has extensive experience spanning over 20 years in the Healthcare Tech space. Vidhya plays a pivotal role in carrying out operational efficiencies and driving cost controls and productivity gains while leveraging emerging technologies. She stands as one of the very few subject matter experts in digital mailrooms, document management and workflow automation. Vidhya’s expertise has been instrumental in providing solutions to some of the nation’s top health plans, large BPOs, and clearinghouse vendors.
Top benefits of a digital mailroom include:
Fewer staffing resources dedicated to processing paper claims and other documents
Faster claims and document processing and enhanced accuracy
Eliminated costs associated with an on-site mailroom facility and equipment (i.e., printers, scanners, shredders)