Same as it Ever Was
And you may ask yourself, well… how did I get here?
A wise and all-knowing oracle told me recently that we are in an era of great confusion and that success will come from ease and simplicity. Oracles never lie.
The current healthcare and benefits acquisition landscape has become ever more complex with the confusion and uncertainty injected by the passage, and halting implementation, of the Affordable Care Act which will directly affect every person in the country. It may take years before the contours of the consequences of this legislation are in even fuzzy focus. Yet, the needs of corporations and individuals for healthcare and benefit deployment will continue apace and not abate just because there’s fog over the battlefield.
The only way to pursue a winning strategy in this overly complex terrain is to simplify and make it easy to perform a basic task – obtaining and deploying fundamental protection for employers, their employees and the employees’ families. In short, complication is a disservice. It will lead to less protection and more anguish.
What’s needed? A simple and easy-to-navigate landing page that asks for identification by status (employer or individual) and if an employer, by size, and by clicking on one icon, the entire process is initiated. From that one click, the customer can not only initiate the desired transaction, but also complete the process in its entirety in one sitting if desired. Efficient, fast, simple, understandable and comprehensive. Perfect.
As a result of the changing marketplace and spurred by the passage of the Affordable Care Act, it became clear that more and more companies and individuals would be meeting their healthcare and benefit needs on web-based compare-and-shop platforms called private exchanges. A successful private exchange will need all the components just described to allow for an efficient comparative purchasing experience with a view in mind to lowering costs. While private exchanges are particularly well suited to serve individuals shopping and buying in a defined contribution environment, they work equally well for employers who still seek the best value in the defined benefit environment. A private exchange is an open marketplace where consumers, be they individuals or corporations, can get information, research alternatives, choose plans, enroll in them and manage them on one environmentally cohesive platform without detours or cumbersome hand-offs.
So, how did CieloStar get here? How did we develop a Private Exchange Solution that is efficient, fast, simple, understandable and comprehensive? There’s 25 years of benefits solutions behind every click and an understanding that nothing is the same as it ever was.