Streamlining benefit plan administration: here are three cost-effective ways you can streamline your benefit plan administration.

1. Review your current processes.

* How does your organization handle new hire processing, changes in family status and claim assistance? Is there a way to consolidate data collection? Using one form for enrolling all benefits and recording changes can simplify the process. Many carriers, however, will insist on receiving data on their forms. You can sidestep this requirement in a number of ways:

* Look for opportunities for organizations to report the information electronically. In this arrangement, you can create one form to collect all the data necessary to enroll the individual electronically.

* For life and disability coverage, are you using a list bill? A list bill provides a census of all the employees covered under the plan on a monthly basis. Most carriers offer a self-bill option in which you simply record the aggregate volumes for life and disability coverage.

2. Review your vendor choices.

* Streamline your benefit plans by using only a handful of vendors to meet your benefit needs. Many insurance carriers will offer discounts if you write multiple lines of coverage with them.

* Check out your vendors' Websites. Many insurance carriers have forms posted on their Websites. Instead of maintaining a huge supply of forms, print the forms off the Website. If your employees have Web access, give them the information they need to print the form off the Website.

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3. Review your data management systems.

* Do you operate separate payroll and HRIS systems? If so, can you develop an extract from your payroll system that will populate your HRIS system? If you can limit your data input to one system that can share information with all the other systems you use, you save time.

* If you use an outside payroll vendor and do not maintain an in-house HRIS system, create a benefits database. It will take some time but your database will be a single source for all the information you need in benefits administration to audit bills, understand enrollment patterns and record employee elections.

This page is brought to you by the Detroit Regional Chamber's Health Care Central--the hub of all business related health-care issues.

To learn more about this exciting new initiative, visit www.detroitchamber.com or call (866) MBR-LINE.

RELATED ARTICLE: Bright Ideas-Save Money

Health-care cost skyrocketing? Moving to a two-tier co pay may not just save dollars, but change employee behavior. Research by RAND Health reveals the following:

* Employers with a $5 co-pay for any type of drug averaged $725 per employee in prescription cost on an annual basis.

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* Doubling the co-pay to $10 for any type of drug results in a 22 percent decrease in cost; the average annual drug cost per employee was $563.

* Doubling the co-pay in a two-tier plan produces even greater savings. Changing a $5 generic/$10 brand co-pay to $10/$20 reduced annual cost by 33 percent. (The $5/$10 card generated an average cost of $678, which reduced to $455 with the $10/$20 co-pay structure).