Workflow of the Week: Automating Your Claims Intake Process
Cut claims processing times and ensure a hassle-free customer experience by managing the claims intake process with workflow automation technology.
Claims managers know that when an incident occurs, it’s going to produce a whole lot of paperwork. Once a report is filed, it’s up to all of the independent players to collect, relay, and manage all the related materials, which is often done in email, spreadsheets, or even by mail. And when it comes time for litigation or audit, it’s absolutely critical to know that procedure was followed to a T and everything is where it should be.
As companies navigate an increasingly-litigious year, claims managers are beginning to focus more holistically on the claims lifecycle and management process. In other words, they aren’t just looking at the end result, but thinking about where the claim begins and how quickly it moves from the field to a repository. With a number of claims to oversee at once, gathering the right information efficiently, securely, and accurately makes or breaks the whole process.
As technology transforms the landscape for matter management, consumers, too, have become accustomed to near-instant responses and electronic communication. Having a “pain-free” experience is important and the end result of their claim process.
Using workflow to maintain chain of custody
Gathering evidence quickly, uploading it immediately, and maintaining its chain of custody are all critical — and this can be tricky, time-consuming, and subject to error without workflow automation software. Workflow technology uses hidden logic to ask the right questions and require specific fields, so that field managers do not need to guess what is important.
For example, based on the kind of claim file that has been triggered and the fields that have been filled out, a workflow can determine what kinds of evidence need to be gathered. For example, is there footage available, or would looking for that be a waste of time? Is there physical evidence that needs to be tagged and stored?
Without this in place, it is not uncommon for those collecting the evidence to have significant email back and forth with the corporate office – or, at worst, to miss out on important evidence that would otherwise help elucidate the concerns in the claim.
Workflow automation is not the end of a claim’s journey, but it does make the beginning of the process more efficient and less prone to errors. What does this mean for you? Down the line, your claims team is going to drive more favorable outcomes while saving time today.
When thinking about improving claims lifecycle processes, it’s useful to consider the complete process – from the moment an incident is triggered all the way to the analytics from the incident that helps drive better future decisions. When claims managers take a holistic approach, they often find that workflow tools (especially ones that easily integrate with their claims files) can act as the conduit between the field and the file, ensuring that information is delivered quickly and precisely – every time.
