Case Study

Adding Value: Imaging Center delivers scanning services for insurance enterprise

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® Scanning Platform and® application software from Imaging Business Machines. Two ImageTrac

SoftTrac

III scanners replaced seven Kodak 9500 units, and delivered a host of benefits. The

new scanners interface with both Captiva and FileNet software products, ensuring

integration with existing BCBSNC applications.

The ImageTrac Scanning Platform’s open architecture is compatible with existing

legacy systems and maintains HIPAA compliance. The ImageTrac scanners deliver

the lowest processing costs per image across the digital workflow, from document

preparation through archiving. The new scanners also allow reuse of separator

sheets, and BCBSNC has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in reduced costs not

only for separator sheets, but also in document preparation.

A multi-department scanning environment

The scalable ImageTrac platform provides a solid foundation for future requirements,

and the versatile scanners can handle a variety of applications for other areas of

the organization. From Claims documents, the Imaging Center moved into scanning

enrollment materials, accounting forms, checks and receipts, and eliminated the

labor-intensive taping and prepping smaller documents often require. Torn or

damaged claims, pages with very light or dark printing, single or multi-page forms

with attachments, even claims with TIFF or JPEG archive requirements are all easily

accommodated by the ImageTrac scanners.

“The state-of-the-art shared services imaging center is a valuable partner to

customer service, medical records, Blue Card and others across the enterprise,”

said Lane. “With ImageTrac, the department gained the flexibility to support multiple

document types and sizes, with proven scalability to meet any volume increases.”

Increased capacity allows the center to scan 24x7 to meet the company’s need for

quick turnaround. Customer-facing documents get to the customer service call center

more quickly, allowing more responsive action and faster turnaround. Better image

quality makes documents easier to read and use, and reduces the potential for errors

from hard-to-read information. When putting a document into the digital stream,

a unique identifier number is applied via inkjet spray, and the ImageTrac delivers

total flexibility in choice of fonts, color, size and placement to achieve more readable

endorsements. Flexible endorsing and support for OCR, barcode, patch codes, color

and size criteria allow better document organization, archive and retrieval. Audit steps

are in place for all processes, to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.

an end to esc alatin g st affin g costs

The ImageTrac platform produces clean, crisp images that resulted in better OCR

registration, and less re-work. Timesaving automatic sorting and the ability to scan

mixed batches without special handling have streamlined document preparation at

BCBSNC. “The new scanning platform put an end to escalating staffing requirements

and associated costs, and allowed us to go from seven fulltime scan staff to just two,”

Lane said.

Even with fewer systems and less staff, the Imaging Center increased daily output

using the high-speed ImageTrac systems. Jam recovery now takes just 15 to 20

seconds, and re-scans dropped to 1.3 percent. Since moving to the ImageTrac

scanners, rescan rates of three to four per cent dropped by more than half to just 1.5

percent, virtually eliminating this time-consuming, inefficiency-laden task.

With high-volume scanning and processing from ibml, the Central Imaging Center

continues its reputation for excellence, and BCBSNC and its customers are reaping

the benefits every day.

The healthcare industry relies heavily on its documents. Customer correspondence,

medical records, solicited letters, enrollment forms, pre-authorizations, cobra

payments, and other printed materials help deliver services and drive the business.

Scanning converts this paper-based information into digital imaging streams quickly

and accurately and makes the content more manageable and accessible.

“Document imaging technology has been adopted throughout our system, and the

early adopters and high-volume users have been Claims,” explained Christy Lane,

Manager for Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina (BCBSNC). When BCBSNC

needed help digitizing paper for other departments, they turned to Claims to become

the enterprise “mailroom” and provide shared central scanning services. It was a

powerful opportunity for Claims to add value and support for the company’s goals.

Center of scanning excellence

“BCBSNC’s Claims operations is a recognized center of excellence,” Lane noted, with

the expertise and infrastructure to capture and deliver digitized data to customer

service, membership and other departments. However, mounting requests from the

call center, finance, enrollment, HR, legal, fraud, sales and marketing, and other areas

were pushing the center to its limits.

The demanding capture environment processes some 180,000 images per day, with

70 percent of these claims and 30 percent non-claims. Their older, inflexible scanning

systems were inadequate in the face of the increasing volumes, paper variety and

overall operationaal complexity. Software compatibility was more difficult with the

aging systems, too, denying the company the full benefits of the latest software tools.

There were a number of other challenges. Varied document types and high paper

volume complicated ingestion of materials, and growing preparation complexity was

leading to staff increases. Scan labor alone required seven full-time employees, while

document preparation needed 21 full time. It was important to maintain a consistent

naming convention unique for every document received. There was no flexible way to

stamp a unique location number on each document to classify a claim, which slowed

efforts to get paper quickly into the digital work stream and made it difficult to archive.

Re-scan volume was nine percent of the total, a tremendous drain on productivity

when incoming documents numbered in the tens of thousands.

Poor image quality made it difficult to use scanned documents for customer service

and other purposes. Cost of patch or separator sheets and other consumables

continued to rise.

Strategic Objectives for new scanning platform

In late 2004, BCBSNC launched an initiative to create a better scanning infrastructure

that could support the growing volumes and variety of paper from multiple

departments and also drive down processing costs through centralized efficiency.

BCBSNC had multiple objectives for their new imaging strategy: achieve higher ROI,

create a flexible platform for growth, reduce exception handling, increase read rates,

and achieve superior image quality. Other goals were to significantly reduce document

preparation efforts and scanning staff, handle multi-size multi-color paper in mixed

batches, limit patch sheet costs, increase OCR rates, and minimize re-scans.

After a lengthy evaluation, BCBSNC selected the ImageTrac