Employers can often find themselves in a delicate balance. They have to try to keep rising healthcare costs under control, so they can continue to afford to offer health insurance coverage to their employees. At the same time, the coverage needs to be robust enough to help retain employees.  

To offer competitive employee health benefits, employers need dynamic reporting that can help them make benefit decisions and modifications based on reliable and up-to-date data. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI) makes this a reality through its Blue Insights Employer Reporting, which provides large group employers with unprecedented access to health benefit data. Blue Insights helps employers spot trends and drill down to pinpoint root causes, assist in making proactive, data-driven decisions in a more timely fashion, and provide high-impact reports, charts and interactive analyses.

For example, an employer may analyze year over year emergency room usage by diagnosis and procedure to understand why members are using emergency services and help educate their workforce on more appropriate care settings.

Employers gain access to more than 40 standard reports, as well as the ability to create and modify reports. It provides the flexibility to convert data in a variety of ways to help large group employers confidently make cost-control decisions. The tool is fully customizable - from scheduling monthly reports, to creating a home dashboard that monitors critical data. It is available 24/7 and delivers the data employers need as soon as it’s available.

For employers, and specifically human resources and benefits teams, it’s essential to have tools to effectively evaluate data and make informed health plan decisions. Employers who can see more claims data will have more information about what drives the costs of their plan and will be far better equipped to make choices that will lead to continued success.

For more information on Blue Insights, visit www.bcbsri.com/b2blue/data.

Meg Galat is director of employer analytics, and Angelo Pirri, Jr. is manager of employer analytics at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.