Change Management: Helping Your Claims Staff Weather the Change to Automation

By Laurel B. Sanders, Director of Marketing, Optical Image Technology, Inc.

Coping with Disaster in a Paper World

In the aftermath of last year’s hurricane season, “change” remains a powerful word, suggesting transformation via the promise it holds as well as the concerns that accompany transition. Change also suggests uproar and adjustment among people and the insurance industry that is designed to help them. After Katrina, significant losses meant unexpected change for many people. The loss of valuable paper records helped insurers and claimants realize that a transformation was needed urgently in the way information was stored and managed.

Tapping into Technology to Expedite Response

Insurance adjusters, agents, and staff must access information quickly to review claims, make informed decisions, and provide quality services. Electronic document management tools enable digital storage that ensures instant and secure access. It reduces filing, minimizes errors and duplication, and eliminates document loss. When automated workflow is added, claims are processed faster, staff becomes more productive, and procedures are consistent. Companies process more claims in less time and provide better services, raising customer retention and providing a competitive advantage.

The insurance industry has existed for more than 150 years; its successful business strategies are steeped in tradition, causing some to turn a wary eye toward automation. Although industry leaders concur that innovation is vital for companies to remain competitive, it isn’t instituted easily. Historically, insurers ran their businesses successfully in a paper environment. Consequently, the decision to automate typically generates resistance. Managers must communicate project goals or face potential failure. Abernathy, Clark and Kantrow once stated, “The industrial landscape is already littered with remains of once successful companies that could not adapt their strategic vision to altered conditions of competition.” No insurer wants to have a stone in the corporate graveyard…so what can companies do to ensure project success?

Preparing Claims Staff for Change

To embrace automation, people need to understand the reasons for change. They need know the benefits, and believe the changes will make them more effective without losing stability or continuity in their daily processes. Without clear vision, adequate training, and communication, users will lack the confidence to support and implement changes effectively. Their jobs will appear challenging and hopeless, like post-Katrina rescue workers exploring New Orleans in the aftermath without road signs or phones.

Facilitating the Transition

Robust document management and workflow products today are designed with end users in mind, facilitating the adjustment process. Web Services help insurers take advantage of tools behind the scenes within familiar claims applications, shortening the learning curve for the staff. Nevertheless, other changes must be considered to ensure a smooth transition. Automation may require changes in hardware, software, storage media, and staff IT skills, as well as shifts in approval processes to make them more consistent and efficient. Staff resources must be allocated to index mission-critical data and documents thoroughly, to ensure information can be found quickly and easily by everyone who needs it.

Analyze, Optimize, Measure, Repeat

Since automation of poorly conceived, inefficient, or inconsistent processes leads to ineffective automation, manual processes must be analyzed and optimized. Personnel should be tasked with analyzing and possibly reengineering each process to maximize efficiency, and managers should motivate and support staff in accepting changes. If disparate technologies are integrated with your claims application, you might contract services to ease the implementation, hire staff with these skills, provide extensive training, or a combination of these options. All spell change.

Milestones and metrics are instruments for measuring success, and major successes should be celebrated. By celebrating milestones, the value of the metamorphosis from paper to digitalization should be clear.

Change never comes easily, but it can be managed successfully if you remember to:

Share your company’s vision and what the automation is expected to achieve.
Create a roadmap with clear, measurable milestones.
Generate interest and buy-in from staff by seeking their input for projects such as indexing and process analysis.
Raise your staff’s confidence in their ability to carry out the automation by providing adequate training.
Measure, communicate, and celebrate project milestones and organizational improvements in service and efficiency.
Encourage your staff to share ideas for continual improvement, and continue to fine-tune the processes.

If you put the tools in place and create an environment where change is planned, communicated, and supported, your project is on the road to becoming a stellar success.

To learn more about OIT’s DocFinity suite of integrated document management and workflow solutions, contact Optical Image Technology at 814-238-0038, visit our website at www.docfinity.com, or email us at info@docfinity.com.