Claimsnet.com Will Offer Online Health Benefits Solutions to Employer Market
With what it says is a customized solution to manage health care costs and improve employee health status, Dallas-based Claimsnet.com Inc., an Internet business-to-business application services provider, is expanding into the corporate health benefits market.
The company said its proprietary ASP technology will enable the sharing of vital healthcare and health benefit information among the four core health network constituents: employers, health plans, providers and employees/beneficiaries. Claimsnet.com said its goal is to control the rising cost of health care for private sector Fortune 1000 employers and health plans.
Indeed, non- government and private sector employers provide health insurance coverage to more than 70% of all insured individuals in the United States. In 1998, the bill for employer-sponsored health insurance reached approximately $600 billion, and is expected to continue growing over the next seven years.
According to the Health Care Financing Administration health care spending in the United States is expected to double by 2001, reaching an estimated $2.1 trillion. Employers are anticipating nearly double-digit increases in annual health insurance expenses through 2002, according to a study conducted by Deloitte & Touche LLP.
Claimsnet.com is one of a growing number of technology companies, as well as benefit consulting firms and other employee benefit service providers, that are gunning to a piece of the lucrative corporate benefits management market. Hewitt Associates LLC, one of the world's largest benefit consulting firms and outsourcers, announced last week the formation of a new company, Sageo, that will provide e-commerce services in the corporate benefits market.
Claimsnet.com said its new Internet solutions will help curb the substantial, health benefit-related administrative costs for employers and health plans, while improving the outcome of health care through the confidential, personalized health management of the insured. The company's move into this market space has been fueled by the increasing demand by employers and health plans for universal technology solutions to control the resurgence in health care cost inflation. Employers and health plans also are concerned about maintaining or improving employee/member satisfaction with their health services.