Healthcare Concierge

Healthcare Concierge is a claims management and employee health advice service where fully-qualified nurses support employees and their dependants through their entire treatment journey – from authorising claims to offering caring advice on any health and wellbeing matter. We do this by signposting claimants to available treatments and encouraging them to seek guidance from their treating doctors if we feel they need further clinical advice. We do not offer direct clinical advice to claimants.

We ensure that the treatment our members receive is delivered in the most cost-effective and appropriate way, and help many of our larger corporate clients to save on their private medical and income protection costs.

• Healthcare Concierge explained
• How Healthcare Concierge helps you, the employer
• How Healthcare Concierge helps your employees
• Key benefits - cost savings
• Key benefits - reducing absence

Healthcare Concierge explained

Instead of talking to a call centre handler, your employees and their dependants will be able to speak to a nurse to discuss their condition and their claim at every step of the claims journey. Our nurses are there to support the member at a time they may feel most vulnerable.

Our nurses will work with the employee to signpost them to the most appropriate route for treatment – this may be as simple as outlining the advantages of using an Employee Assistance Programme or to highlight the benefits of using the NHS. We will make best use of the entire benefits programme for all of the stakeholders.

The route for a claim can often throw up challenges for the member – be that understanding provider terms and conditions or understanding the cost of their treatment. Our nurses will be there every step of the way and can challenge insurer decisions and negotiate fees with treating consultants, if needed.

The claims process can be complicated – we aim to simplify this by dealing with the entire process from start to finish. This may be as simple as managing the billing and invoicing process to ensure that the appropriate appointments have been arranged.

How Healthcare Concierge helps you, the employer

• We’re an extension of your HR team: Every time we help your employee to submit a claim, every time we lend a shoulder along with expert advice, every time we take away the fear… you get the credit. And that’s how it should be. When staff are happy they share their positive feedback with other employees, all reflecting positively on you.
• Less admin equals more time: We take the headache of handling all your benefit admin away from you. Our nurses deal with the whole claim end to end and are also better able to turn unjustified requests down and deal with sensitive issues than in-house staff. Our nurses can use their knowledge to help a member access healthcare when a condition or treatment is not covered by the policy.
• Management Information that matters: You get full reporting on high value claims and the average cost per claim by employees, dependants and condition so you can get an early heads up on what’s working and what isn’t.
• A bespoke service to fit your company culture: Caring employer putting health and welfare first? Or is the focus more on cost control? You tell us what makes you tick and we’ll tailor the scheme accordingly. Of course, good service and cost management are not mutually exclusive and we have 25 years of experience to prove it!
• Considerable cost-savings: By signposting to treatment in the most cost-effective and appropriate manner, we make sure your healthcare premiums and claims don’t spiral out of control.

How Healthcare Concierge helps your employees

• Empathy and expertise: Instead of speaking to an anonymous call centre worker with no medical knowledge, your employees will be handheld by a familiar nurse throughout the entire claims process. The success of this technique is reflected in our 96% ‘good to excellent’ member approval rating.
• Minimum form filling: They do not have to liaise with insurers and medical teams or cope with endless complex form filling for private medical insurance or income protection claims during their illness.
• Above and beyond: Our nurses often offer ongoing support to members long after a claim has been dealt with.
• Fighting your employees’ corner: Where appropriate, we use our clinical expertise to challenge a declined claim with your insurer and seek alternative routes to treatment.
• Health helpline: A telephone helpline is available for scheme members, offering guidance on where to seek advice for any health issue.
• Help for excluded conditions: Even if a condition is not covered by a health policy, we can still talk employees through the NHS system and the options for them and advise on how to seek treatment for chronic conditions.
• Treatment options: Where appropriate, we may be able to suggest other treatment options and guide members on the best way to access those treatments.
• No time limits: The length of phone calls is not restricted so we can give your staff all the time they need.

Key benefits - cost savings

We deliver savings to our clients by organising care that is most suited to the patient, but which uses the most cost- effective combination of both NHS and private medical options.

• We co-ordinate all your benefits to access care without inflating premiums. For example, an EAP service may include CBT treatment for a depressed employee rather than claiming on a medical insurance policy, or a cash plan can help to pay an excess on a PMI policy.
• Critical or acute condition? The NHS has 24-hour observation and leading specialists in the field so is usually the best option but your PMI policy could be used to access much faster scans and therefore treatment.
• We highlight the generous financial incentives (around £100 for each night spent in hospital) available to patients accepting NHS eligible care under a private healthcare policy.
• We scrutinise treatment costs and challenge those we don’t think are fair.
• We pre-negotiate costs with treatment providers and insurers to make sure you’re getting the best value for money.
• We control outpatient treatment costs – such as monitoring how effective physiotherapy sessions are proving.

Key benefits - reducing absence

• We negotiate with the insurer to cover the costs of a private consultation and treatment, including physiotherapy and rehabilitation, to get your employees back to health as soon as possible.
• We offer advice on self-help options or support groups to promote earlier recovery and reduce recovery costs.
• We notify you on costly or lengthy claims and step in with OH, IP and sickness absence solutions to help.
• We liaise directly with consultants to secure faster diagnosis and treatment for employees.