Common Barriers to Implementing EHD

August 2019

Most experts agree that electronic health records will play a big part in life and disability insurance operations. They contain extremely valuable data, are readily available, and have the potential to shorten processing time frames and/or improve mortality and morbidity.

We also know these data sources differ from traditional sources, requiring that each company identify appropriate use cases for their business while deciding how to introduce it into their underwriting protocols– a process that will take time. The time to get started on this is yesterday.

So why have so many carriers struggled to get these projects off the ground? To date, the barriers to entry have been intimidating – extremely low hit rates meant the only way to get data on a meaningful number of cases was pouring a ton of cases through the front end – which required a custom IT interface with your data provider for any use in production. After that is complete, there is pressure to integrate with your underwriting workbench and add complex algorithms or predictive models to analyze the data. This is where we can add in some additional buzzwords like Block Chain, AI and the IOT for added dramatic effect.

While some carriers have dedicated cross functional teams with specialty IT resources and data scientists at the ready, there is a path forward for those who did not win the FTE jackpot.

Clareto is uniquely positioned to deliver useful, actionable, electronic health data, using our proprietary web-based portal OR via our state-of-the-art API. This means that if you don’t have the technical resources, or just want to dip your toes into examining this new data source, Clareto can have you up and running in a matter of days! Requesting a record can be done in less than a minute and there is a key to getting hit rates that make this well worth the effort – submit business written in states where Clareto has a statewide HIE in place. Our average statewide hit rates in these areas is in excess of 65% and data can be delivered back in anywhere from seconds to 24 hours. No fancy algorithms on hand? Clareto includes all of the original data in an xml format for machine processing or analytics, and also delivers a human-readable version (pdf) that your experienced underwriters can use today. That means there is an opportunity to see immediate value if your underwriter can waive an APS/paramed exam or discover that pertinent medical impairments were mistakenly left off the original application. There are no start-up costs, licensing fees or minimums required so getting started is easy. Please reach out to Dave Dorans (ddorans@clareto.com) or Katie Devlin (kdevlin@clareto.com) for more information.

What’s new this summer?We’ve been hard at work with our new partner organizations! Clareto is happy to announce the addition of the following HIEs into their network:

Healthix (NY)
LACIE (Kansas City)
NMHIC (New Mexico)

Stay tuned for more exciting news about Clareto’s ever-expanding data network in the next few weeks!