The Importance of Using MDM for the Health Insurance Industry

Master data management (MDM) for the health insurance industry unifies the different tiers of governance while protecting both public and private data. MDM is essential for your insurance agency’s success in today’s industry.

According to a recent report, experts predict the global MDM market to expand from $11.3 billion in 2020 to $27.9 billion by 2025. The two driving factors of this leap in popularity are the need for quality data and workplace conformity.

Let’s look at how MDM transforms the health insurance industry and how you will benefit from using it in your company.

Key Takeaways:

• Master data management helps unify departments within your insurance company.
• Migrating data to the cloud ensures each person has access to the most accurate information.
• MDM keeps data secure and compliant with current regulations.
• Storing data with MDM decreases IT costs and losses due to errors.

What is MDM for the Health Insurance Industry?

A master data management platform keeps all data consistent so that every part of your team, in addition to your customers, all receive the same, accurate information.

Some of the data it collects and organizes includes:

• Information about customers, employees, and suppliers
• Details about office locations
• Updated data on contracts, warranties, and licenses
• Reports on products and assets

Video: What is Master Data Management (MDM)?

Without a unified system, your data is spread across multiple systems between small teams within your department. This leads to inaccurate data as employees and clients exchange information, which goes through several digital transfers.

However, an MDM eliminates those errors and keeps everyone on the same page with one centralized system for the storage and distribution of data.

How Can the Health Insurance Industry Use MDM?

You can help your company grow by using MDM by keeping each branch connected despite the increased number of employees and customers. By digitizing your firm, you can also keep your business on top of the latest innovations and technology trends.

However, the more you digitize, the greater room you will have for mistakes in the information, misspellings, duplicate data, and other errors. The average business pulls data from over 400 sources, with 20% of companies pulling from over 1,000 sources. In addition, those who collected the data often spread it across multiple platforms and databases.

However, instead of every branch of your company having separate information stored in their systems, they can collaborate to create one accurate database.

Image Source: QMetrix

The data you collect will also help you process and analyze your customers and their actions. Analytics depends on accurate data. Otherwise, your results will be skewed, leading to wasted time and energy pursuing strategies grounded on false information.

Additionally, the health insurance industry has dozens of existing and new data regulations. However, an effective MDM support platform helps your company stay on top of those regulations.

Potential Challenges You Might Face with MDM

The first challenge you may face is investing in a reliable MDM platform. This investment takes money and time to train employees on using the system. You will also need to set aside a significant amount of time to set up the system and establish data standards.

You can address these challenges by budgeting adequate time and money to your MDM system, knowing that you will save more money and time by eliminating costly errors and tedious manual tasks. Additionally, your system will be easier to use and manage if you have an established data governance model for organizing, checking, and sharing data run by a chief data officer.

5 Benefits of Using MDM for the Health Insurance Industry

You will see tremendous growth and collaboration within your insurance organization if you use an MDM platform for data management. Here are five specific areas you can expect to see improvement.

1. Better Client Care

Your MDM system will have the most updated and accurate client information that will help you track and manage your customers to offer them the best possible care and coverage. Additionally, you can streamline customer processes such as reimbursement by having all the necessary data in one location to pull up and record quickly.

2. Improved Coordination Within the Organization

Your providers, members, offices, and other employees will access the same data. Therefore, each person can make decisions based on the most accurate and updated information, resulting in unified and coordinated business efforts.

Due to the large amount of data insurance companies now handle, chief data officers and multi-tiered data governance in the insurance industry are becoming increasingly popular to help organizations manage the data and distribute it accordingly. A chief data officer will also oversee your MDM platform and keep it running seamlessly.

Image Source: Centers of Excellence

3. Compliance with HIPAA Regulations

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) ensures that data remains private unless a patient consents to share it with a designated person. With a data management system, you can protect sensitive information and control who sees the records in compliance with HIPAA and other regulations.

You can encrypt and store data in a secure location outside of your business by leveraging cloud storage through your MDM. In addition, cloud storage comes with multiple backup servers and enhanced security that prevents hackers, data leaks, and lost information.

4. Improved Data Accuracy

With data coming in from multiple sources such as patients, employees, and automatic data collection platforms, you can easily lose, mix, or mess with data. However, keeping the data in a central location reduces the chances of errors by limiting the transfer of data, having multiple people coordinate in data collection, and using automated systems to check the accuracy of your information.

5. Decreased Industry Costs

With fewer systems needed due to a combined platform, you will also see reduced IT and operational costs because of faster operations and the reliance on fewer resources.

In addition, you will also save money due to decreased data errors such as duplicate customer profiles or inaccurate spelling of information.

Manage Your Data with an MDM Platform

If you are experiencing challenges with storing, accessing, and transferring data, you should consider using an MDM platform in your insurance industry. When you begin using MDM, you will see faster transactions, more accurate data, and increased cost savings.

Contact us to get more information on our MDM platform for the health insurance industry.