Case Study

Creating Business Value through the Automation of Mail Handling, Order Fulfillment and Remittance Processing

® high-speed devices from

Birmingham, Alabama-based ibml. The ImageTrac includes an open track design

and pockets for document sorting. It also features dynamic image enhancement and

in-line intelligence to minimize manual tasks. With the ImageTrac scanners, Humana

can define documents in a transaction -- for instance, automatically detecting

envelopes or using MICR or OCR technology to process checks -- allowing the

company to destroy three-fifths of the paperwork from mail order transactions.

In addition, the ibml scanners are integrated with Humana’s back-end data capture

system, allowing the company to seamlessly pass information in a timely manner to

accelerate order fulfillment. Humana wanted zero changes to the back-end system

processing orders and prescriptions. This meant that ibml had to recreate the output

file coming from the integrated extraction and scanning system. The conversion was

done seamlessly.

Any documents that can’t be destroyed are stored in a vertical carousel for easy

retrieval.

The ReSults

By implementing a solution that provides high-speed mail extraction and high-speed

scanning, Humana now processes up to five times as many orders per hour with one

less operations shift and nearly 75 percent fewer full-time equivalents (FTEs). This

has been accomplished largely by reducing the amount of manual tasks and paper

handling required with its old integrated mail extraction and scanning system.

Humana’s old scanning process required operators to place one document at a time

on a transport to be scanned. To distinguish a prescription from other documents

that come in the mail, an operator then had to manually trigger a sensor. Moreover,

the inherent design of the integrated scanner produced an image that challenged

the ability of Humana’s data capture system to read barcodes on order forms and

perform optical character recognition on checks; this resulted in more exceptions than

anticipated.

“The lesson is to test and verify manufacturer performance claims with live

documents,” Mahar says.

With the ImageTrac scanners, operators can process over 12,000 pages (representing

24,000 images) per hour. Humana also achieved its goal of improving on the image

quality of its initial solution, in turn, reducing downstream exceptions. The ibml

high-speed scanners provide much sharper and clearer images. What’s more, Mahar

points out that the ImageTrac scanner has the built-in “smarts” to automatically

detect different form types and apply the appropriate logic, in turn, improving

downstream processes.

As a result of replacing its in-line mail extraction and scanning solution with

Agissar equipment and high-speed scanners from ibml, Humana has achieved

significant business benefits while consistently meeting the turnaround expectations

of its members. Key benefits include reducing call center staffing requirements,

streamlining employee training, achieving better read rates on check data and

reducing downstream rejects, automating document sorting, and reducing physical

document storage. Additionally, ibml’s in-line document classification has simplified

Humana’s scanning jobs.

“Humana is all about ‘Perfect Service.’ We realize that our members have a choice,

and the service we offer is critical to our customers’ satisfaction and Humana’s

success,” Mahar concludes. “FTE savings can justify process improvements, but our

business is to satisfy our members. By moving to a solution that combines high-speed

mail extraction and high-speed scanning, we have the best of both worlds. We are

proof positive that hardware task specialization improves performance.”

Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, is one of the nation’s largest

publicly traded health and supplemental benefits companies, with approximately

10.3 million medical members. As an international full-service benefits solutions

company, Humana offers a wide array of health and supplementary benefit plans for

employer groups, government programs and individuals.

Over its 48-year history, Humana has consistently seized opportunities to meet

changing customer needs. Today, the company is a leader in consumer engagement,

providing guidance that leads to lower costs and a better health plan experience

throughout its diversified customer portfolio. Among its consumer services, Humana

provides mail order pharmaceuticals -- the focus of this case study.

The Challenge

Receiving orders for prescriptions through the mail can create processing challenges.

Orders are typically comprised of five items, which may include the envelope, an

order form, two prescriptions, correspondence, and a check -- a tall order for most

document scanning solutions. At Humana, mail needs to be counted, opened, scanned

and filed by noon each day. Most days, Humana processes an average of 11,000 orders

in a six-hour window, with the company receiving mail twice each morning.

Humana’s first attempt at automating the processing of mail orders was a solution

that combined automatic mail extraction and scanning in the same step. The problem

was the justification for this solution was based on the advertised machine cycle rate,

and the actual rate was far slower. What’s more, having mail extraction and scanning

together created processing bottlenecks; operators tried to pre-prep orders to

increase productivity, but this didn’t solve the problem and created other inefficiencies.

“The obvious solution isn’t always the right one,” Michael Mahar of Humana

RightSourceRx, says of the company’s decision to implement an integrated document

extraction and scanning solution.

What Humana needed was a more cost-effective solution that could better manage

fluctuating volumes, minimize hardware investments for both extraction and scanning,

identify documents automatically without relying on separator sheets, and reduce

staffing requirements -- all while ensuring high customer satisfaction. Complicating

matters, Humana had minimal IT resources available and limited floor space for

document retention. To accomplish all of this, Humana knew that it needed a solution

that would provide more flexible image capture, automatically process checks, make

better use of barcodes on the documents, and provide productivity reporting.

The Solution

Humana found the answer in a solution that split up mail extraction and scanning.

The benefits company selected Agissar as its vendor of choice for automated mail

extraction. Humana implemented four Agissar devices, which minimized the

company’s hardware investment while maximizing throughput. The devices included

integrated productivity reporting software.

For scanning, Humana implemented two ImageTrac