Welcome to the monthly edition of In-Site, brought to you by UnitedHealthcare. The purpose of this newsletter is to provide information about industry trends and UnitedHealthcare news of general interest to our customers, potential customers and brokers. If you are not an employer or broker, or believe you have received this newsletter in error, please use the unsubscribe function in the newsletter.

In Focus: Understanding Health Care
TECHNOLOGY STREAMLINING ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS

As health care costs continue to rise, the industry is looking to cut costs system-wide, and administrative costs have been an area of focus. By streamlining these costs, particularly with the use of technology, health care services and employers may simplify complex processes, minimize errors and provide more efficient service.

The trend among many of today's employers is to eliminate paper forms for benefits administration and turn to self-service administration, which includes online enrollment. A recent survey by Forrester Research found that 32 percent of employers now use the Internet for benefits administration, while 54 percent plan to eliminate paper forms within the next five years.

By automating several HR functions, companies can significantly reduce their expenses while increasing efficiency. The Follet Corporation implemented an employee self-service system that caused their transaction cost to decrease 21 percent per employee in two years. Other employers have found that giving employees access to benefits information online can decrease administrative costs by as much as 60 percent.

Employee self-service systems allow employees to track and maintain their personal data via the Internet or company intranet at their convenience. An additional benefit for employees with online access is maintaining their privacy while getting health care information about what procedures are covered by their health plan or while inquiring about sensitive issues. The Web also may be an effective tool to increase employees' knowledge and understanding of their benefits.

Online services provide a lower-cost option for health plans, employers and other health care service providers for expenses such as physician directories, subscriber tools, health information and basic communications. As the number of online administrative options continues to increase, benefit administrators will find themselves in a more efficient, cost-effective health care environment.

In Detail
DEMAND MANAGEMENT CONTRIBUTES TO HEALTHY, HAPPY EMPLOYEES

According to the American Medical Association (AMA), most patients do not have sufficient health knowledge to make decisions about their care. The AMA found that low health literacy among patients costs the health care system $73 billion a year in unnecessary doctor visits, hospitalizations and longer hospital stays. These unnecessary visits also result in absenteeism from work. One solution to this problem that has been gaining popularity among employers in recent years is the concept of demand management – providing people with health information and resources to help them use medical care appropriately and make smart decisions about their care. Often, the effect of demand management is that more people are administering self-care, decreasing the demand for professional care, and thus decreasing costs.

Demand management programs can take the form of an educational service such as call-in nurse information lines, counseling services, seminars or newsletters. Much of the time health care providers spend with patients is spent offering information and reassurance rather than actually treating them. The implementation of demand management programs allows physicians and health care providers to focus their time on serious medical cases while patients get the basic health information they need without taking a trip to the doctor's office. For example, by calling a 24-hour nurse line, a patient can discuss a health issue with the nurse who will help them determine if the patient should seek medical care, or if self-care would be sufficient.

Many employers have seen reduced absenteeism and improved productivity of employees who have access to demand management programs. The programs may save employees the inconvenience of emergency room visits, office appointments and lost time from work. In 1995, Dow Chemical Company implemented a health decision support hotline. More than 40 percent of employees who used the service said the hotline kept them from making an unnecessary trip to the doctor. Thirty percent of the callers believed the hotline prevented the loss of at least one workday.

The Mayo Clinic conducted a four-year study on the health promotion and self-care among employees and retirees of a large, national, insurance company. The study found the company reduced absenteeism by 19 percent and saved approximately per employee each year by offering a health risk analysis, self-care book, monthly newsletter, videos, quarterly campaigns and other health classes and screenings.

In addition to the cost and time savings of demand management programs, they also may result in improved employee morale. Employees view these programs as an additional benefit to keep them both happy and healthy.

In Addition
TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES ADMINISTRATION FOR EMPLOYERS, BROKERS

UnitedHealthcare continues to implement technology applications in order to streamline administration for employers and brokers. This streamlining allows UnitedHealthcare to reinvest in new technology to continually upgrade its capabilities.

Last month in InSite, we told you about a new initiative to introduce a set of preferred, streamlined benefit plans through our Preferred Portfolio initiative in our Key Accounts area (51+ employees). The Preferred Portfolio plans offer increased opportunities to auto-adjudicate, or auto-pay, claims. Because the benefit levels set in the Preferred Portfolio are programmed into our system automatically, claims are evaluated and paid consistently with each employer's benefit plan. Claims that are submitted correctly should be paid quickly and automatically, without human intervention.

Employers with more than 51 employees, whether they have a Preferred Portfolio plan or not, have access to the electronic tools available through Employer eServices^sm (www.employereservices.com) to save valuable time spent on their administration. This innovative solution allows customers to add, change, or terminate employees and verify eligibility, receive invoices and remit payments online. Employer eServices also includes a suite of reporting features that vary depending a customer's benefit plan and funding arrangement.

In our Small Business area, we are continuing to expand the uhcexpress.com Web site. This Web site allows certified brokers to request quotes real-time and generate proposals for 2-50 life groups. Product areas covered by uhcexpress.com include medical products, incidental medical out-of -area products, Life and AD&D products and Dental products. The uhcexpress.com site also provides online product and benefit comparison, access to physician directories, online collateral and other reference materials. With this site, brokers will be able to streamline the quote process with UnitedHealthcare.

By the end of July 2002, all UnitedHealthcare small business markets will have complete user capability and access to uhcexpress.com. The Small Business Group sales offices are adding new brokers to the system daily, assigning each broker a USER ID and password. UnitedHealthcare Small Business Group strongly urges all brokers who don't have access today to contact their local sales office for more information.

For employees, UnitedHealthcare offers myuhc.com. Previous articles in InSite detailed the myuhc.com capabilities for tracking claims status, looking up eligibility and even tracking medical histories. Having employees complete some transactions through this self-service site saves employers from having to complete these tasks. The site recently reached the milestone of having more than one million registered users.

Employer eServices, uhcexpress.com and myuhc.com are just a few examples of how UnitedHealthcare is using technology to streamline business. The effective use of technology is one reason why BusinessWeek magazine recently named UnitedHealth Group #11 on the list of the 50 top-performing companies (see In Brief article).

In Depth
CARE24 PROVIDES SERVICES TO HELP MANAGE WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Offering a variety of work-life benefits for employees can contribute to increased retention and productivity in your workforce. Demand management programs like UnitedHealthcare Care24 can help employees who have personal or work-related problems achieve peace of mind so they can focus on their jobs.

Employees can call Care24 anytime of the day or night, 365 days a year, for guidance from experienced registered nurses, master's-level counselors, attorneys, financial advisors, management consultants and trainers. They can get help with issues like childhood illness symptoms, medication questions, work-related stress, emotional problems, chemical dependency, or personal legal and financial issues.

For in-person support, Care24 contracts with more than 3,000 professionals nationwide who provide local, in-person services. In addition, Care24 also offers your employees access to audio messages on more than 1,100 health and well-being topics. Or, if they prefer, employees can access thousands of health-related content topics on www.myuhc.com.

In follow-up surveys of people who called Care24 nurses, 78 percent of the people surveyed reported decreased stress levels and about one-third said they had avoided taking time off from work to deal with their problem. Ninety-seven percent of the people reported overall satisfaction with Care24, while 88 percent said Care24 helped improve their ability to make health care decisions.

What this means to employer customers is a reduction in money and time lost from lower productivity. Using an average employee wage of $20 per hour and calculating productivity values based on national averages, UnitedHealth Group estimated that Care24 helped UnitedHealth Group customers prevent a loss of more than $200 million in 2001 by helping employees avoid absenteeism and decreased productivity.

Care24 is an integral part of our medical benefit products. It is offered standard with all fully insured products, or as an additional service for self-insured customers.

In Brief
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP NAMED ONE OF THE TOP 50 PERFORMERS BY BUSINESSWEEK

In its April 2002 issue, BusinessWeek magazine named UnitedHealth Group number 11 on the list of the 50 best performing companies in the United States, exceeding the performance of 99 percent of the companies in the S&P 500.

The magazine cited UnitedHealth Group's investment in technology as the reason it made the list. The article quoted Tom Goetzinger of Morningstar, Inc. saying that UnitedHealth Group has “moved faster than others in the industry to pump up its technology to deliver better services and it has been a very smart move.”

Increased use of technology has paid off in streamlining administration. BusinessWeek mentioned UnitedHealthcare's physician portal for checking eligibility and claims submission, and the employer Web site for administration, billing and reporting. UnitedHealth's various Web sites handled more than 2.5 million transactions in the fourth quarter of 2001, while call volume in the service centers fell as enrollment grew.

Click the following link to see the article: http://www.businessweek.com/pdf/220334BWEprint.pdf.

To learn more, please visit our web site at www.unitedhealthcare.com