HanseMerkur Krankenversicherung aG: Incoming Mail Processing

Customer	HanseMerkur Krankenversicherung aG, Germany
Project	Automated Incoming Mail Processing
Integrator	IBM Global Services
Products	PROSAR-AIDA, PROKEY
Publications	Success Story HanseMerkur (PDF)
The Company	HanseMerkur′s 125 years old roots go back to the foundation of the "Hanseatische Krankenversicherung von 1875 Merkur VVaG". In 1969 the merger with "Die Hanse-Krankenschutz VVaG in Hamburg", founded in 1936, led to the present „HanseMerkur Krankenversicherung a.G.“ - the parent company of the HanseMerkur insurance group.
The Challenge	"Being a personal insurance provider with a long distinguished tradition, we have focused on the human aspects of customer service and relationship building – this is a principle which is mirrored both in our innovative products and our service". At HanseMerkur, because the focus is on service and customer relationships, labour intensive, internal, back office work should be automated to as high a degree as possible. This philosophy very directly applies to the distribution of incoming mail and the extraction of data from it. HanseMerkur Insurance set out with an overall goal of better utilizing their human resources in order to maximize customer service. A key component to this goal was to more efficiently and accurately sort their incoming mail and capture more data without the need for additional manpower. The ultimate project objective was to fully sort and identify all incoming mail consisting of invoices and other important documents, and further, to perform automatic data extraction and validation with little if any human intervention.
The Solution	HanseMerkur chose a solution from Paradatec which was integrated and implemented by IBM Global Business Services. Components include: Paradatec′s PROSAR-AIDA and PROKEY ICR/OCR-capture system along with EMC′s InputAccel scanning subsystem. This set of components integrated with the highly sophisticated yet easily maintained rule tree logic from Paradatec has become a virtual standard used by many health insurance organizations worldwide. In 2006, HanseMerkur went live with automatic document classification for their private health care claims (fig. 1: Rule Tree). The implementation has been an unqualified success. From day one, HanseMerkur has been identifying, classifying and routing 78 different freeform document types and 150 structured form types. All specified data items which were previously key entered in a very manual process, today are extracted automatically using Paradatec’s highly efficient ICR/OCR process. Formerly keyed data items, which are now captured in a highly automated way include: customer demographic information, policy deductibles, copayments, advance payments, and information about parameters of visual aids and diagnoses. In 2007, this already very successful project was expanded with the addition of automatic line item extraction of billing data from doctors and dentists (fig. 2: Line Item). This billing data is validated against a database of tariffs for doctors and dentists. Additionally, the original classification and data extraction process was expanded to include up to 85 document types. Today, the accounting department at HanseMerkur utilizes Paradatec’s PROKEY in a process for automating accounts payables records in HanseMerkur’s SAP ERP system.
The Results	Success in numbers: 90% automatic classification of all incoming mail (85 freeform document types,150 structured form types); More than 81% of contract numbers and 85% of table data (line items) are extracted automatically and require no manual indexing; New back-office processes have ensured higher data quality, better customer service, and increased customer loyalty; Unprecedented business growth (about 50% expansion of customer base and close to 20% increase in premium growth in 2006). This growth has all been managed with little to no increase in mailroom labour headcount.