“What a great day for HR Tech,” I said to myself as I settled into the office this morning. “Never before has Benefits Administration been the cover story of the news outlets. Not only is it the lead, but the President of the United States himself is getting ready to give a press conference. What could be more grand for our industry? We are finally getting the attention we deserve as the engine that runs business.”
“I’ll just click on this link and see what the story is about… oh, crap. He’s saying ‘no sugarcoating’ problems with HealthCare.gov?”
“Ok, quickly moving on, did you see the Kansas City Chiefs are 7-0?”
Well, so it’s not such a great day for smoothly operating Benefits Administration from the perspective of the Obama administration. But if you’re a routinely glass-half-full type (as I’ve been known to be at times), at least the importance of technologically sound, well-working HR Technology has never had higher visibility.
Leaving all politics aside – which I fully know is riling at least half of the readers who are just frothing to get into an “access is a right”/free market/fiscal health/insert-topic-of-day-here debate – never before has the importance of well-run Benefits Administration been so visible. Having sat through countless go-live events over the years, our team is acutely aware of how difficult the programming, data loads and carrier feeds can be. I cannot begin to imagine the size of the project plan we’d build for this – “let’s enroll America” event.
While technology will certainly be the solution for the future ─ I’ve found it often remains just that: a solution for the future, and rarely a solution for the present. As a concerning illustration: the administration says nearly 500,000 people have filled out applications online – while about 1.2 million calls have been processed. So we’re going a little old-school here with a call center. Left behind are complex decision support and online avatars. Instead, The Benefits Administration of the Free World is… “Hello, my name is Betty. How can I help you?”
Our industry has so much more to offer – to both employers and Americans.
By the way – for a quick smile to get your week started off well – please check out my favorite of all time ACA headline. It comes from that bastion of news integrity…The Onion:
Man Who Understands 8% Of Obamacare Vigorously Defends It From Man Who Understands 5%