Voya tool simplifies supplemental health benefits

Voya Financial has launched a new HR tool to help make the supplemental health insurance claims process easier for employees.

Seventy-percent of employees view supplemental health insurance— a plan that covers costs beyond typical health insurance policies — as important as employer-based health insurance and retirement benefits, according to data from the Society for Human Resource Management. However, only one in 10 employees surveyed by Voya said they had ever filed a claim.

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“Employees typically spend most of their time focused on core workplace benefits: medical, dental and vision,” says Mona Zielke, senior vice president of claims and operations at Voya Financial. “In the midst of a global pandemic, this could put an employee and their family in a challenging financial situation if they get hit with an unexpected medical expense.”

Voya Claims 360 is meant to help employees close insurance gaps in their coverage through claims integration, which will alert employees of eligible supplemental claims if they have also filed for short-term disability. The Voya claims team may automatically open a supplemental insurance claim and issue a benefit on behalf of the employee.

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“The goal of Voya Claims 360 is to simplify and streamline the process so employers can help support their employees,” Rob Grubka, CEO of Health Solutions for Voya Financial, said in a release. “We want to make it easy for employees to use and maximize the supplemental health benefits that they are often paying for during their time of need — even when they are unaware they may have a claim opportunity.”

The platform will also include intuitive claims payment, which helps employees anticipate and pay for follow up expenses related to an accident or illness. For example, if an employee with a broken ankle files a claim for a documented fracture, the Voya tool will assume the person will likely need follow-up doctor visits, X-rays and crutches. Voya’s program will automatically pay for those events when the original claim is filed.

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“It’s about applying common sense and making the claims process easier for employees,” Zielke says. “This allows the employee to focus on getting better versus spending time trying to track down supporting documentation over the course of several months, so they can be reimbursed later.”

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When an employee enrolls in their supplemental benefits, Voya Claims 360 will also analyze their medical claims data and find claim opportunities the employee either overlooked or didn’t realize was available to them.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has only magnified that the health and wealth of Americans are connected like never before,” Zielke says. “Offering supplemental benefits — like accident, hospital indemnity and critical illness insurance — can help lower the financial stress of their employees, increase productivity and lead to greater retention of top talent.”