Employees are looking for competitive benefits, especially in health care. But for employers, providing great health care benefits can be costly, and comes with significant administrative responsibilities. Employers everywhere are grappling with the escalating time and budget demands of benefits administration, as evidenced by various studies over the last two decades. Administrative expenses account for roughly 15% to 25% of total national health care expenditures. That adds up to an estimated $600 billion to $1 trillion annually.

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and automation have emerged as transformative solutions for this challenge. These technologies hold promise to:

• Streamline workflows
• Decrease costs
• Reshape the benefits landscape

The AI revolution in health care benefits

AI tools, such as machine learning (ML) models, can streamline repetitive administrative tasks for benefits administrators. They save staff members precious time and provide a better member experience. These tools can also predict disease risk and other behaviors to target the right interventions to the right people in a member population. They can provide self-service analytics insights and model contract parameters to make better benefits decisions.

Reducing administrative burden with AI

AI technology can process enormous volumes of data in minutes. It can perform tasks quickly that would have taken benefits administrators or employers hours (or days) to complete manually. These capabilities result in time and cost savings – reducing administrative overhead and allowing employers, and the administrators and consultants that support them, to divert resources to enhance client experience.