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Beyond the Phone Interview
IBU Auto Decline Guidelines Reduce
the Cost Summarizing Very Large APS
Insurance companies hate wasting money. Yet APS summary vendors will usually spend 3+ hours to fully summarize a 350-page APS even when it's quickly apparent that the case is a decline. IBU has a better solution that focuses resources on what matters most to save time and money.
Home office underwriting departments feeling the pressure from new business are turning to APS summaries to maintain service standards. But for APS summaries to be useful, home office underwriters must feel comfortable to rely on the summary without having to look back at the APS.
Home Office underwriters are often skeptical about having someone else reading their APS’s. This is especially true when it comes to summarizing very large medical records. Producing useful APS summaries requires not only good underwriters, but good underwriters with good writing skills. IBU uses experienced U.S.-based underwriters exclusively for APS summaries and tests all of our summary underwriters to make sure they can produce quality APC summaries.
Our professionals are former home office underwriters who review APS’s and document the right information the right way, which gives home office underwriters the confidence they need to be comfortable.
Using experienced underwriters for APS summaries is more expensive than non underwriters but we’ve developed a strategy to streamline declines that lowers this difference. IBU team leader Toni Koss describes how it works:
When summarizing a case that is a decline, send the summary with ample documentation to support a decline, but let the client know that "the entire content of the records was not documented in order to save time." Also let the client know that if they want us to proceed with full documentation, we can go back and do so. This gives the client the choice.
If it can be quickly discovered that the case is a decline, the summary often only takes 30 minutes or less instead of 3+ hours. IBU clients almost never ask for full documentation on clear declines because it's a waste of time and money!
For APS summaries to be sustainable, the expense must provide as much value as possible. Despite the higher cost, the best person to summarize an APS for a home office underwriter is another underwriter. Utilizing the IBU auto decline guideline helps reduce costs by focusing IBU underwriter time on summarizing the insurable risks that matter most to our clients.