Business and IT Leadership

Driving Paperless Workflow Across the Enterprise

Our Client

Our client, a former Blue Cross Blue Shield organization, is a national administrator of Medicare programs.

The Background

The competitive landscape was changing, and the client needed to change with it. Winning a bidding war for one or more 15 regional contracts would require the client to lower cost per claim by upwards of 30% while taking on double the workload. To meet these requirements, the client adopted a two-pronged approach: to improve its business processes across key departments and to extend and optimize its existing paperless workflow Initiative — both while maximizing reuse of their legacy systems.

Previous experience with Blue Slate had convinced the client contacts of our expertise and ability to collaborate. With this in mind, they asked us to develop applications for their new workflow and rules platform. As it turned out, this was only the beginning.

The Challenge

For Blue Slate, the principal challenges were: to stay ahead of the rapid evolution in the client relationship; to stay focused on the clock since time was of the essence; and to prioritize the work for maximum impact on the bottom line costs. The client’s original thinking was to focus immediately on application development, however they quickly realized that they were in need of more structural support and so the scope of work evolved to encompass other critical program functions such as strategy and vision definition, project prioritization, project leadership, business analysis, process optimization, and infrastructure modernization—all in the service of implementing the paperless workflow Initiative across the enterprise.

The Blue Slate Solution

The Blue Slate team began by embracing the paperless workflow Initiative as an excellent base for an efficient, scalable model to achieve business objectives. From there, team members provided business and technical leadership in five distinct areas:
Data-Driven Program Leadership
-    Employed a data-driven approach (time, cost, ROI, strategic impact) to prioritize projects, beginning with call center as a central focus area
-    Recommended priorities for project planning and scheduling
-    Raised awareness of project among key stakeholders
-    Standardized project management processes for better communication and risk management
Process Optimization
-    Collaborated to redesign critical processes for large productivity gains
-    Leveraged standards and reusable processes across functions for quantum leaps in efficiency
-    Introduced analysis methods and documentation to encourage buy-in across all levels of the organization
Application Development
-    Developed applications on new workflow and rules platform
-    Helped to integrate the new automated workflow system with supporting technologies, such as Computer Telephony integration (CTI) with their existing IVR system and also a direct connect with their new Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system
Systems and Infrastructure Optimization and Modernization
-    Reduced manual processes by creating interfaces among business rules, process applications, and enterprise content management systems
-    Developed monitoring process to make system problems visible and actionable
-    Improved system responsiveness and recommended hardware configurations
Change Management
-    Trained and mentored the client’s IT team to help them support the organization’s new infrastructure
-    Implemented rigorous testing to ensure fast adoption of the system and drive out system errors
-    Participated in the development of new change management processes to make changes and subsequent costs visible to business and IT teams
-    Continue to provide Tier 3 support to client

In all of this, the Blue Slate team collaborated closely with client contacts across the enterprise: functional groups, IT professionals, business leaders, project managers, and many others.

At the project’s completion, the client had an end-to-end solution that combined legacy systems and databases with new, more agile technologies. The results not only helped the client win a five-year contract but positioned the company for further growth:

  • Cost reductions of 25% to 40% in automated departments with seamless transition to new level of workload
  • 60% decrease in caller wait times
  • More than 40% productivity gain in Appeals function
  • Change management mindset taking hold throughout organization (less resistance to continuous market dynamics and changing requirements)