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Nearly 90 percent of insurers embracing IT to handle challenges, opportunities

Technology, automation will support pay-for-performance, insurance exchange
Tools

As insurers continue adopting new payment models and benefit designs, more than 88 percent said they will use health information technology to transform their organizations, according to a new survey from HealthEdge. 

"This is in direct response to the limitations of outdated legacy systems, which have been holding insurers back for years," Ray Desrochers, executive vice president at HealthEdge, said in a statement.

In the next three years, more than 70 percent of the 120 surveyed payers said they plan to implement pay-for-performance models as well as participate in health insurance exchanges. Another 60 percent of payers will launch accountable care organizations, and 50 percent say they will incorporate value-based payments.

But these value-based models are doomed to fail if payers don't adopt a higher rate of claims automation, Desrochers previously told FierceHealthPayer in an exclusive interview.

Fortunately, insurers plan to incorporate more health IT and automation throughout their business. The survey found that about 85 percent of insurers plan to use health IT to support reporting and analytics in the next year; 80 percent say they'll use IT for transparency tools, including portal and mobile applications; and 60 percent will use it for care, disease and utilization management.

Insurers also reported that they still struggle with the high cost of manually adjudicating claims and relying overall on manual business processes. In fact, 56 percent of the surveyed payers say they're still automatically adjudicating just about 20 percent of their claims, and more than 57 percent said they pay more than $6 per claim to manually process it.

That's why 87 percent of the surveyed payers said automating manual processes is key to lowering their administrative costs.

To learn more:
- here's the HealthEdge statement

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