Tag Archives: Preparation

2 Preventative Steps To Help Avoid Claims Crisis Before They Become Emergencies

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Want To Save Some Real Money? Don’t Have An Emergency Room Mentality In Claims

Seth Godin in his wonderful blog recently wrote about Emergency room doctors in organizations. These are the people that are really good at, and are rewarded, for stopping bleeding. Seth is questioning where is all the strategic thinking to prevent those emergencies in the first place?  In claims we tend to hire and support that emergency room doctor mindset. As Seth states about these doctors, ”

It’s a mindset, not just a job.

You can pitch them as hard as you like about having them work to persuade their patients to give up smoking (after all, it saves lives in the long run), but I think you’ll find that they’re a lot more interested in stopping the bleeding.

Claims departments seem to be more interested in stopping bleeding than preventing it in the first place.  We hire those specialists and reward those that can deal with the crisis as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately we in claims don’t spend enough time trying to prevent the causes of the crises. Again, as Seth writes:

We need emergency room doctors, no doubt. I just wonder if we have too many of them in your organization. If all we do is reward fast first aid in what people do at work, is it any wonder we don’t have enough attention to the strategy and choices that would eliminate the need for all that running around in the first place?

So what can be done? How does one change the mindset?  Well I will tell you so keep reading…

Prevention Is Not That Difficult If You Try

Prevention does require a base of knowledge and to “know how prevalent the emergency room culture is” within your organization.  There are two simple ways to have your organization stay ahead of those emergencies and that is conducting an operational assessment and to develop an active internal review program.

1. Operational assessment:  Take stock at where your organization is.  When mired in the emergency room mentality it is easy to loose perspective.  The operation seems to be getting along so what could possibly be improved. Or my favorite statement of “we’ve always done it that way and there is no time to change.” Is that really how you want your department to function?

Organizations change. Technology changes. Businesses are evolving.  If you don’t assess your operation from time to time and look for possible areas to improve you are destined to continue the emergency room approach. At the very least, take a look at those repetitive tasks such as bill payment and taking in new losses to see if there there are opportunities to improve.  Explore the technology offerings in the industry and see what if anything is available to enhance the ability of claims professionals to do what they are supposed to do – analyze files, set reserves, move cases to resolution and doing it all over again.

2. Internal Review Program: An active audit program to review for best practices is one of the best tools available to learn about your organization and ensure claims departments don’t get mired in the that emergency room approach to management. A regular program sets out the expectations for a review and creates comparative benchmarks to measure for future reviews. This of course is enhanced when the process is clearly defined and the review is consistently executed. Conducting regular reviews is a sure way to ensure emergencies don’t happen.

You Are Not Alone – Help Is Available

At Lanzko we work with clients to perform these operational assessments. I strongly believe that having someone that is detached from your organization is the best way to identify issues that may be ripe for improvement.Sometimes employees are too close to a problem inside an organization to identify it. Bringing Lanzko in can also help move change along. Let’s face it. No one likes change, especially Corporate America. But sometimes change is needed, and we can help “get the ball rolling.”

From an audit and internal review perspective, Lanzko’s The Audit Portal is a tool designed to help manage those internal reviews, create consistency and create benchmarks to become a more strategic organization. With a tool in place, Audit data is not just lost to a spreadsheet or attached as an appendix to a report. There is great information being lost in the traditional audit. We change that and provide meaningful, actionable information to improve operations.

 

Blizzard Warning in the East! Can your claims department keep running if the office closes?

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The snow storm hitting the East Coast is a great reminder to be prepared

Today much of the East Coast is under a blizzard warning. Yesterday, in anticipation of the storm many cities took preemptive measures to be prepared by closing schools, readying plows and salt trucks, and changing parking regulations. Airlines and other business took similar measures to ensure the safety of workers.  All of this activity reminded me about something that is often overlooked – claims departments also need to be able to handle their own offices being closed due to natural or other events.

Major disasters are not always the reason why you need a disaster recovery plan. The claims department should have a plan to manage situations where their office is unexpectedly closed, unavailable, or no longer usable. Whether it’s a snow storm or a burst pipe that floods the office, being prepared for the predictable or unpredictable events is important. And, like changing your batteries in smoke detectors when the clocks change, disaster plans should be reviewed regularly.

Is your office ready for the unexpected?

In my career disaster plans had to be initiated on 2 occasions (9-11 and the East Coast blackout of 2002) and I was also heavily involved in pandemic planning for the Avian flu scare. In all of these situations our claims department was ready. We were prepared because of planning and our technology. Our claims system and claims files were all electronic, off-site and accessible an remotely. Remote access was a key component to managing any kind of contingency where an office has to be closed.  This ability to continue to manage claims when others have to close is a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Are you ready for the next incident that shuts down your office? Ask yourself these questions:

  • Do we have a disaster and recovery plan in place?
  • When was the last time we reviewed our plan?
  • If we had to close for more than one day could we still manage claims? What about a week or more?
  • How many of our claims staff can access the system from home?
  • How much information is available electronically?
  • De we have paper claim files or do we store them electronically?
  • Do we store our files locally or off-site?
  • Do we have back-up data? Do we store our back-up data off-site?

Being prepared for the larger disaster, and having the technology in place, means that closing an office for a snow storm or other event won’t affect the regular management of claims.