The benefits staff of an employer with approximately 13,000 employees and retirees covered by multiple health plan suppliers had lost its ability to proactively manage its suppliers.

Objectives

• Develop a single set of standards for doing business with any healthcare supplier
  
• Establish a mechanism to evaluate supplier compliance with these standards to support renewal or replacement decisions

Solution

• Facilitate meetings with internal benefits management staff to identify and prioritize key business issues common to all suppliers
  
• Develop a comprehensive set of business requirements by which all suppliers would be managed
  
• Communicate and negotiate implementation of business requirements with health plan suppliers

Results

• Variances creating performance problems were readily identified enabling the client to focus health plan supplier attention on practices inconsistent with business requirements
  
• Major performance problems with the primary health plan supplier were resolved within six months
  
• An ongoing supplier performance management process was initiated using the business requirements as the foundation