Insurance Business ReviewDECEMBER - JANUARY8IN MY OPINIONTHE IMPORTANCE OF INSURANCE ANALYTICS By Bernard Khomenko, First Vice President National Director, Value Based Healthcare, Alliant Insurance ServicesData has always been the cornerstone of the insurance industry, critical to understanding the risks transferred between interested parties. For most of the history of this industry, ownership, and knowledge of the data were one-sided. Insurance companies accumulated vast amounts of data that allowed for deep insights into the types of risk and potential costs of those being insured.Employers that chose to self-fund the medical coverage provided to their employees have long been able to obtain data on their enrollees. However, the depth and potential use of the data supplied to employers have been limited by the employer's medical administrator's view of the data as containing proprietary information that could impact competitive advantages. In addition, except for the largest companies, the volume of data was not credible, further limiting its usage.Recent rules, such as the Transparency in Coverage Final Rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have sought to reduce the barriers to viewing data long seen as proprietary, for example, now giving insight into reimbursement arrangements with providers and facilities through publicly available Machine Readable Files (MRF). The curtains have lifted slightly, but there are still impediments to insight.Today, employers rely on third parties to process and aggregate this complex web of data provided by plan administrators, third-party solutions, and government-mandated data files such as the MRFs. Alliant Insurance Services focuses on helping our clients navigate through the tributaries of data now available. Alliant Interactive Analytics, our proprietary reporting platform, focuses on predicting outcomes via a big data analysis approach to data. With this platform, healthcare stakeholders can now more accurately measure population health risk, identify emerging trends, and proactively develop strategies to improve both the health of their employees and their bottom line.Bernard Khomenko
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