StarTek Unveils Contact Center Support for Consumer-Driven Health Plans

StarTek, Inc., a leading provider of Business Process Outsourcing and Optimization (BPO) services for outsourced customer interactions, today introduced its contact center support services for Consumer-Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) including Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Aimed at healthcare executives who want to promote wellness, increase consumer satisfaction, and compete more efficiently, StarTek’s solution helps them outsource CDHP-related customer care functions as an extension of their enterprises.

CDHPs, and more specifically the High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) coupled with a Health Savings Account (HSA), will impact the efficiency and overall cost of health care in the United States. Health Savings Accounts were enabled by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, and provide an important element in President Bush’s health care reform policy and agenda. They are tax-sheltered, interest-bearing accounts used in conjunction with a high-deductible health plan. Employees can direct pretax income into accounts that can be invested and drawn upon for healthcare costs.

“Consumer-Driven Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts will continue to increase in magnitude for the insurance/healthcare/banking business landscape over the coming years,” said Steve Butler, CEO of StarTek. “As banking and healthcare continue to overlap, StarTek will be the strategic partner who will bridge the gap of support between healthcare companies, financial institutions and employers to help to reduce the cost, confusion and complexity of offering these plans to consumers.”

He added that, for healthcare executives, CDHPs add hundreds of opportunities for growth and thousands of new consumers to support. Predictably, call volumes and call lengths will increase to service these popular Consumer-Driven Health Plans. “The current process of passing consumers back and forth between financial services specific agents and healthcare representatives to answer questions is no longer acceptable in today’s competitive environment driven by savvy consumers,” said Butler. “StarTek’s CDHP contact center solution is a true single-source customer care outsourcing service for healthcare industry executives, who want to cut operating costs, keep expenses predictable, while producing measurable bottom-line improvements.”

The StarTek contact center solution for CDHPs includes:

• First point of contact (phone, chat, and email)
• Universal agents to answer large breadth of inquires
• Ongoing plan education
• Open enrollment FAQs
• Seamless call triage and/or escalation processes
• In-depth training curriculum
• Technology integration

According to Butler, today’s healthcare patient/consumer information environment is rife with poor call routing to multiple people with different areas of expertise and is based upon an inefficient cost structure whereby high-paid agents are answering Tier I account set-up calls. StarTek’s CDHP services improve customer satisfaction, reduce transaction cost, increase support during the growth of these health plans and provide up-sell opportunities to expand market share.

A recent study by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) recently released preliminary results of a study determining that in the past ten months the number of people covered by a HDHP/HSA combination has increased from one million to three million. It is estimated that there will be 15 million people covered by CDHPs, specifically HSA accounts, by 2010, holding between $10 and $62 billion in HSA assets.