Tech

As health care consulting and cost analysis become more and more complicated, brokers can help clients reduce costs by using data mining - a field that is constantly evolving with new technology and tools.

Financial firms can ‘outsource’ almost any operation, from reporting to trade processing to customer support, to the computing cloud, anywhere in the world.

In kasina’s yet-to-be released 2nd annual study, findings indicate that about 87% of asset managers and insurers use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, but very few are experiencing increased sales.

When HHS published its template for a Summary of Benefits and Coverage my first thought was, "Wow, this looks a lot like the summary information available in my products and many other products on the market. Now we have yet another version of how to communicate benefits to consumers, and we have the government telling the experts how to do something we have been doing for years."

It used to be commonplace to find employees of Las Vegas-based Insurcorp at the casinos at 2 a.m. Not to blow off steam after a long workday, but to continue it, conducting benefit meetings for graveyard shift staffers.

Owners of insurance agencies — long a community mainstay — need to start pondering their futures now or they may become irrelevant, said the chairman of The Big "I".

Liberty Mutual Insurance’s Group Benefits operation became the first to introduce a mobile application that makes it easier for employees and clients to manage their benefits.

Although the focus of discussion among health plan thought leaders who convened in Florida last month at The Managed Care Executive Group ran the gamut from care management to meaningful use, to medical informatics, payment reforms, HSAs and more, technology’s role in the industry’s success was evident.

Forty-two percent of respondents have used social media to access consumer reviews of treatments or physicians, 30% have supported a health cause, 25% have posted content about their own health experiences and 20% have joined a health forum or community, according to the Health Research Institute of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Ongoing market dynamics and trends will affect the acquisition, implementation, and use of connected health technology by U.S. health care providers, payers, and consumers in the year ahead and beyond. Increased understanding of these forthcoming changes will help health care organizations and I.T. vendors optimize their strategic planning and investments. Overarching themes that run through IDC Health Insights' top 10 connected health predictions include mobile, social, “big data," cloud, and analytics. Health reform and market pressures to reduce costs and improve the quality of care will play a major role in shaping the following 10 themes and predictions.