TELUS Helps Sun Life Benefit Members File Claims Quicker, Electronically

TELUS Health Solutions will now make it easier for benefit members of Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada to submit their medical claims electronically, either when they get to or leave the offices of their healthcare providers, and even better, get their claims paid faster, according to a press release .

Instead of making clients fill out sheet after sheet of documents when filing a claim, as in the past, Sun Life has signed an agreement with TELUS to offer this electronic choice to them for participating physiotherapists, chiropractors and vision care providers, according to the press release. 

In addition, the press release notes that Sun Life clients will also be protected by its anti-fraud technology that tracks unusual claiming patterns, decreasing the risk of loss from fraud for plan sponsors.

"As a market leader in group benefits in Canada, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to feed into the growing popularity of convenient paperless options with our clients,” said Stuart Monteith, senior vice president of group benefits at Sun Life Financial Canada. “This latest innovation that we're offering with TELUS will enable providers on behalf of plan members to submit a claim before they leave their healthcare provider's office."

Providers will not have to buy new applications, according to the press release, but be able to use their own management system or a portal on a website managed by TELUS to submit eClaims.

The press release points out that the benefits of eClaims is not just for patients, but for providers, too. The system allows them to minimize plan members' out-of-pocket payment amounts with reimbursement assigned directly to providers, better manage their billing and receivables activities, decrease the paperwork involved in manual preparation and submission of receipts or insurance forms, and reduce their claims processing time and costs, according to the press release.

In fact, claims management is so important, the American Medical Association (AMA) has started a campaign to help providers reduce the cost of managing the claims revenue cycle from as much as 14 percent of revenue to just one percent, with electronic health records (EHRs) as the key.

Called “Heal the Claims Process ™,” the AMA campaign advises that setting up an electronic claims system will allow clinicians to better focus their resources on patient care and less on administrative tasks.

Electronic claims filing is now being used for other types of submissions, including those who receive unemployment benefits in such states as Kentucky.

In an interesting aside, attorneys who help veterans file benefits claims are worried that electronic claims processing could hurt some people unless lawyers also have access to the claims records. In a story by Rick Maze, for security reasons, access to electronic records will be severely restricted, angering both veterans service officers and lawyers who help veterans.