Over 20 years, our mission to serve members has never changed. What has changed is technology and its role in service and care delivery. Too often we hear about automation and AI that can “reduce human overhead” in a service model. That goes against our member-centric approach and who we are as a people-first company. At LaborFirst, we would like to be clear: the 160+ in-house Member Advocates behind our award-winning solutions are mission-critical.
By providing human-centric support, we are giving members what they want. According to a recent annual survey on the benefits preferences of employees, 68% of respondents favor only human support when enrolling in new benefits, 62% strongly prefer human support when discussing sensitive life events, and 54% prefer human support when working to resolve a billing or claim matter.
At LaborFirst, we never leverage technology to do a human’s job. We leverage technology to empower our Advocates, not replace them.
Our ratio of Advocates to members is intentionally set to help ensure consistent 90+ NPS from client and member surveys—a world-class benchmark. Unlike a call center, we don’t measure first-call resolution because it incentivizes ending an inbound call as soon as possible. We value member engagement and issue resolution above our own cost-cutting measures. On average, for every one inbound call from a member who needs our help, there are two necessary outbound calls to providers, pharmacies, insurance carriers, government agencies, etc. In addition, an Advocate will end a member’s experience with a completion call that closes the loop with the member.
Trust Leads to Engagement
A member’s inbound call routes to the Advocate with case history first, so the person who picks up the line knows what they have been through. Members come to know their Advocates on a first-name basis and build relationships that foster trust and increase engagement. When it comes to important healthcare decisions, our members want guidance from real people they trust, not bots.
Data-Driven Technology that Empowers
The role of cutting-edge technology should always be an extension of human capabilities. AI-enabled platforms—like our AdvocateIQ—can immediately analyze massive amounts of multi-sourced data: medical and pharmacy claims, health risk assessments, biometric screenings, call recordings and transcripts, and health plan coverage details. Utilizing this data holistically, AdvocateIQ can automatically suggest next best actions to our Advocates. Those actions could be the most effective steps for resolving member issues, prompts to close gaps in care with available ancillary benefits, and navigation to a preferred provider based on location, quality, and cost. Put plainly, AdvocateIQ helps our Advocates respond to members better and faster.
Automation also has its place in workforce productivity. Our AdvocateIQ records and transcribes all calls for transparency, training, and quality assurance. It also generates in-depth notes during calls, saving an Advocate’s time and allowing them to focus their full attention on a member.
New technology is important to our member services. We have to continually adopt and integrate solutions that improve the member experience and impact outcomes.Through AI-guided next best actions, Advocates can guide members to the right care and resources early, which reduces emergency interventions, improves outcomes, and maximizes plan ROI. However, technology has its limits in healthcare advocacy. The real key to the results you need is humans who members can trust.
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