Open enrollment is a hectic time for any HR professional or third-party administrator. If you feel overwhelmed, you’re not alone. The Employee Benefit Adviser’s Open Enrollment Readiness Benchmark report found that employers were largely unprepared for the 2018 open enrollment period. To make the process go smoothly, you need an early start – and the right tools.
Open Enrollment Challenges
HR professionals and third-party administrators are painfully familiar with the challenges created by open enrollment, ranging from communication and compliance to data collection and documentation. With so much to do, it’s no wonder than COBRA participants and retirees often fall through the cracks.
According to the Department of Labor’s FAQ on COBRA Continuation Health Coverage, “A change in the benefits under the plan for the active employees will also apply to qualified beneficiaries. Qualified beneficiaries must be allowed to make the same choices given to non-COBRA beneficiaries under the plan, such as during periods of open enrollment by the plan.”
COBRA participants must be included in open enrollment. However, COBRA participants are easy to miss and harder to engage because they are offsite. Similar challenges exist regarding retirees. Nevertheless, their inclusion in open enrollment is essential.
A Smarter Solution
You may be tempted to forget about open enrollment for a few months. It’s a reasonable desire, but it would also be a mistake. Now is the perfect time to assess the previous open enrollment and plan for the next one – before a new time crunch ensues.
If during your assessment, you find that you had too many issues to track and great opportunity for improvement, there’s good news. Travisoft is introducing OE+, a new solution to automate open enrollment administration for COBRA participants and retirees.
This solution addresses two major issues. One, these groups won’t be at risk of falling through the cracks anymore. Two, third party administrators and HR professionals will have more time to focus on active employees.
With OE+, you can:
- Save time. By eliminating manual and administrative work, you will have to spend less time on open enrollment.
- Increase accuracy and efficiency. High workloads lead to mistakes. Automating the process solves this problem.
- Eliminate cost. The automated tool is a cost-effective solution with an increased ROI.
- Streamline workflow while creating new service opportunities. This is ideal for third party administrators looking for a competitive edge.
- Improve communication with real time status updates.
- Make better decisions with better data and centralized information tracking.
- Go green. This software solution can help you reduce your carbon footprint.
Why wait another day to get your next Open Enrollment season off to a great start? Email us to request an OE+ demo.