Disability Insurers Lagging Behind With Technology For Scanning Medical Records
www.theinsurancepolicy.com - October, 2006
Researchers at ClaimVantage Inc. and JHA Inc. have exposed a troubling problem with U.S. disability insurers
according to nationalunderwriter.com.
Many of them “still have trouble scanning medical records and other documents into their claims systems.”
The researchers conducted an “informal survey of 23 disability carriers and plan administrators.”
A stunning “77 percent of participating carriers are using aging ‘legacy’ systems or a combination of legacy systems
and modern vendor systems.”
Of the carriers in the survey “only 41 percent of the disability claims systems can handle images.”
Not surprisingly “46 percent said they believe their current systems are making their operations less productive”
while “About 40% of the carriers told the researchers that they feel as if internal information technology teams are
too busy with other projects to provide much support for disability claims operations.”
The purpose of a disability insurer is to honor claims made by those they insure so how can such little
emphasis and importance be placed on basic technology upgrades for the ability to properly scan medical records,
other documents and images?
I think priorities are a little out of whack in this case.
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