Helping Disease Managers Manage Better

Business type
Medical disease management company

Key need
Automatic, secure document fulfillment for a very complicated business model

Situation
The client — then a small disease management company with a background in serving diabetes patients — needed a partner to handle personalized communications.

The company, whose clients included major insurance companies, knew that communicating with patients both verbally and in writing about their individual needs was critical for keeping those patients healthy. Better health outcomes in turn translated into fewer claims and huge cost savings, creating wins for patients, employers and insurers alike.

While the company maintained its own call center staffed with nurses to handle verbal communications with patients, it diligently searched for a reliable, long-term growth partner that could print and process increasing volumes of individualized communications and ensure accuracy and security in handling sensitive medical information. The client also needed specialized invoicing and reporting to determine the return on investment for its own clients.

• We began by assessing the company’s diverse and complex needs and process flow. Then we worked closely with them to develop quality control procedures and business rules regarding personalized patient communications. Because these communications were branded based on the specifications of various insurance companies — and because they also were personalized with disease-specific information — many quality assurance steps were needed to ensure accuracy.
• To accommodate rapidly escalating growth, we took the lead in developing customized software to automate the data and file-handling processes. By the fourth year of the partnership, we had developed an electronic interface with the client that can process more than 700 data files at one time and accommodate projected growth over the coming five years.
• We implemented a number of process improvements, including:
  • a customized Web-reporting management tool that enables the client’s staff to track jobs through our system as well as current balance and history of usage and inventory forms
  • automated processing of files for bulk mailing (including sorting and preparing paperwork required by the postal service)
  • purchase of software by the client (following our recommendation) that improved process flow and led to fewer pieces of returned mail
  • “on-demand” printing and mailing that allowed the client to upgrade old, manual processes, create customized mailings tailored precisely to the patient’s illness, and gain major cost savings on processing and postage
  • Ongoing evaluation of processes and continuous quality improvement efforts

• Increased volume. In the first year of the communications program, we prepared approximately 850,000 personalized mailings to patients and physicians. By the sixth year, we produced over 12.5 million pieces involving more than 29,000 different jobs.
• Speed and accuracy. Data files from the client receive several automated quality control checks and begin printing within five minutes after arrival. Our system enables us to process more than 5,000 different combinations of variable data materials based on branding, disease, language, age, member and provider documents. Automatic processing, meanwhile, greatly reduced turnaround time.
• Improved quality. With 12 quality control steps during the production process, we have achieved an error rate of 0.037%. The industry average is nearly 100 times higher.
• Privacy protection. All mailings for the client comply with federal HIPAA regulations governing the privacy and security of patient data.
• Cost savings. Automated processes, fewer errors and returns and faster turnarounds all have contributed to major cost savings for the client. On one job alone, we identified opportunities that resulted in savings of more than $300,000 in postage.
• Client growth.  Since partnering with us, the client has grown to become the largest and most successful disease management company in the U.S. Each year, the client continues to enjoy double-digit growth. To stay ahead of that growth, we constantly add capacity and currently can produce more than 105 million booklet mailings and 411 million letter-size mailings.