Applied Epic Optimization

Applied Epic Integrations – Further Enhancing Your Agency’s Efficiency

April 21, 2021 by Kellie Halfpap

One of the many benefits of being an Applied Epic user is the number of integrated platforms developed to enhance your Epic experience and boost your agency’s virtual efficiency. The insurance industry has become much more sophisticated through technology and online processes, so it is vital for your agency to keep up with this trend. Whether you are Management, an Account Manager, or a Producer, there are integrations that you can incorporate with your daily workload. But with so many now available, you may be asking, which one(s) is best for my agency? Below, we’ll review a number of Applied Epic integrations that agencies can take advantage of to help them operate more efficiently and serve their clients better.

CSR24 & Applied MobileInsured

CSR24 and MobileInsured are no-brainers when it comes to Applied Epic integrations that your agency can benefit from. CSR24 brings convenience to Account Managers and clients by providing document and policy management in a portal that is accessible at any time. Clients can request changes to a policy, initiate and track claims, and request or even generate their own insurance certificates. MobileInsured furthers the accessibility by providing a personalized mobile app customizable for each client and your agency.

blueButler

Ensuring your clients are consistently receiving top-notch customer service is crucial for your agency’s continued success. If you want to be able to route calls faster, record those calls to ensure quality service, and reduce E&O risk, blueButler may be the solution for you. It gives you the ability to see client information from Epic when a call comes in. You can make notes and associate that call directly to a policy, contact, or activity within Epic. Management can create tags, scripts, and checklists for consistency in call workflows. It can also show you daily call activity and the recorded audio to ensure the service provided is always precise and meets agency standards.

Indio

When it comes to renewals and remarketing policies, carriers often require their own separate application completed on top of other supplementals to provide a quote. Asking a client to fill out multiple applications can be time-consuming and frustrating, and trying to keep track of each application also comes with its challenges. Indio helps reduce the risk of E&O exposures while saving you time by automating data to populate across multiple carrier applications, custom forms, and questionnaires located in their 15,000+ application library. Within Indio, you can easily track changes in exposures or receive a notification when a client fills out or submits requested information. Clients can even flag questions that they need assistance with, which will notify the Account Manager directly. Agencies have found a higher return rate and faster turnaround time of applications from clients due to the ease of use of this product.

Marketing Automation

Marketing your agency and the services you offer is a vital process for maintaining a strong book of business and ensures your clients and prospects are receiving up-to-date industry content. Marketing Automation allows you to create, send and track email campaigns to target a specific audience. You will have the ability to send a myriad of content found in the Marketing Automation library containing both PNC and benefits materials. You can pull contact information directly from Applied Epic and track your campaigns’ open and click rates. Marketing automation is a great way to regularly stay in front of your clients while also providing them with valuable information.

Applied Epic for Salesforce

For an agency to operate and provide exceptional service to its clients, it’s essential that sales and servicing staff work together efficiently. Applied Epic for Salesforce offers a seamless operation by allowing producers to sell and market on the CRM platform and transfer the data directly into Epic. The Account Manager can then track and keep up with the status of a client account. The dashboard within Salesforce allows you to keep track of sales and performance with detailed reports and enables you to remain up to date on your book of business and opportunities. Attachments, activities, opportunities, and more can be created in either Salesforce or Applied Epic and pushed to the other platform ensuring sales and service are working with current information. If Producers don’t have an Applied Epic license or use it often, having Salesforce is a great way to keep their Account Managers in the loop regarding where they are in the stages of selling and marketing for a specific client.

Benefits Designer

Created to eliminate the traditional “spreadsheeting” process and reduce E&O risks, Benefits Designer allows you to build custom proposals and compare different benefits plans all within one system. Premiums and rates are calculated automatically for you, and you can update costs in real-time to present a side-by-side comparison of coverage based on client budget and needs. Relevant information can be transferred directly into the policy application within Epic, reducing manual entry even more. Numerous plans can be created based on client structure, whether they are self-funded, fully insured, or community rated.

eSignature Solutions

Reduce the need for physical paperwork and decrease wait time by incorporating an eSignature platform into your agency’s operations. Programs like DocuSign and RightSignature help you manage agreements and contracts by providing the ability to prepare and sign them all online. Send and receive signed documents without sacrificing security compliance. These two specific products also transfer signed documents right into Epic, which will notify you via an Activity.

No matter the role you play in your agency, there is an Applied Epic integration that can benefit you and your agency. With the bi-directional integration that each platform offers, you are reducing your E&O exposure and saving time by cutting out the need for manual and duplicate entry. Our KiteTech Consultants are here to help you optimize your Applied Epic system and assist you in deciding which platform(s) would benefit your agency the most. Contact us today at consult@kitetechgroup.com for a free consultation.

An Applied Epic Checklist to Start the Year Right

December 9, 2020 by Kellie Halfpap Leave a Comment

As you look ahead into 2021, you may be wondering if there are specific procedures you should be implementing to set your insurance agency up for success and optimize your Applied Epic system. Below we share a few recommendations on items that we feel are important to check off this time of year.

Run Expiration Reports

This is the time of year when many employees are taking time off, so it is imperative to make sure they are aware of all policies that are renewing this month or in early January. Even if employees regularly receive Expiration reports, sending out more frequent reminders during the holiday season will help ensure expiring policies are addressed, which will, in turn, help you avoid a possible E&O exposure.

Employee Performance Reviews

This is typically a great time to meet with your employees and review their performance over the past year. If you have implemented employee auditing practices, you should review the results and utilize them for performance reviews. Auditing reports can be a crucial tool in determining which employees are doing a great job or require more guidance and training.

Clean-up Outstanding Balances and Premium Payables

Insurance Companies and clients will also have limited staff this time of year due to the holidays. Run an Aged Outstanding Current Balances report to view all outstanding client balances and send out statements early to avoid trying to collect or pay multiple outstanding invoices after the new year. Apply Debits and Credits throughout the month to get those cleaned up for Year-End. Running the Balancing Current Premium Payables report will help clean up any manually reversed transactions and identify any transactions that may be outstanding to the carrier or return premium to the agency for the year. This accounting step is especially important if your fiscal year ends in December.

System Clean-Up and Workflow Review

If you have specific configurations and workflows set up for your agency, this may be a good time to review them to ensure they still make sense for your agency processes and procedures. Start a discussion with your employees or use the employee audits (if implementing) to see if there are any gaps in workflow procedures that you should amend to increase efficiency.

New Product Research

Now is also an excellent time to research new products that integrate with Applied Epic. Programs like Indio, DocuSign, blueButler, or Salesforce can be great software additions to increase your agency’s efficiency and productivity. If most of your employees work remotely, these products can make that operation more seamless by automating certain processes. Learn how these products could benefit your agency. For example, Indio has a great feature that will copy duplicate information across multiple carrier applications saving you or the client from re-writing the same information over and over.

Checking off these items will set your agency up for continued success going into the new year. It is important to run reports periodically this month to make sure you address upcoming renewals and handle any outstanding balances. Touching base with employees and reviewing workflows will ensure continued efficiency within Applied Epic. Finally, take some time to research new products that can prove beneficial for further automating practices that save time and keep remote work seamless. If you would like assistance or guidance with any of these recommendations or would like to learn how we can help your agency utilize Applied Epic more effectively, contact us at consult@kitetechgroup.com.

Automating Your Workflows: Tips on Optimizing the Use of Applied Epic Download

October 27, 2020 by Kellie Halfpap Leave a Comment

The Download feature in Applied Epic is one that can automate tasks and create efficiencies in multiple areas: policy applications, transactions, activities, attachments, for example. While it does require some time to properly configure how Download will influence each of these components, once set up, you will find that having certain functions automated for you saves time and creates efficiency in your daily workload. Here are some features of Download and how they can prove beneficial when implemented into your workflows:

Consider Instant Download Versus Scheduled Download

It is standard to schedule Download to occur one to two times per day, the most common being once in the morning and once in the evening after work hours. Alternatively, you can implement Instant Download, which will pull updates from carriers as they occur throughout the day. Instant Download is particularly useful when it comes to important events like claims or reinstatements. In these cases, it is more beneficial to the insured and you as the Account Manager if Download updates a change to the account in real-time versus at a scheduled time, as it keeps their account the most up to date. Instant Download also takes away the large batches that often come with a scheduled Download: when Downloads are only occurring once or twice a day, the system can get clogged and take longer to process; however, when using Instant Download, they are processing in smaller batches as changes or updates occur, which takes less time to process.

Create Separate Download Transaction Codes from Agency Bill Transaction Codes

To keep an account updated and accurate, consider setting up separate Download transaction codes. Most of the time with Agency Bill, you would be billing the full annualized premium amount, applied to the Annualized field at the Policy or Line levels. But with Direct Bill, it is often difficult to determine if the amounts listed on a statement is for a total annualized premium, an endorsement, an installment, or just commission received. You can configure Epic to have the “Policy” download update your Annualized Premium and have a separate set of Direct Bill transaction codes that do not affect your Annualized Premium. This is a great way to prevent issues with transactions downloaded that may be classified as a renewal but are actually an installment, for example.

Configure EDOCs With Your Agency’s Naming Conventions & Folder Structure

When using EDOCs to attach policy documents, most of the time, the description is ‘Downloaded Policy’ or something similar. You can override the attachment descriptions to match your agency’s naming conventions by pulling in field defaults for Policy type, Effective Date, Policy Number, etc. However, it is important to note that this would not work for endorsements, as EDOC cannot decipher which Service Summary Row to pull the description from. It is also beneficial to set EDOCs to attach documents to the appropriate folder and subfolder, saving you from re-routing the attachments to the correct locations.

For the Activities screen, setting up unique EDOC activity codes that further specify what that activity contains is an easy way to distinguish what is coming in through EDOCs, saving you from clicking through activities to figure out what each is. For example, you can set up an ECLA code for downloaded Claims, an EREN code for downloaded Renewals, or an EPOL code for downloaded policies. You can even put descriptions on these codes like ‘Claims Document Download,’ which provides even more detail about each activity before opening it. Utilizing unique codes and descriptions makes searching for a specific document or activity easier as well.

Implement the Use of Download Activities Instead of Communication Log

While you are most likely used to a printed or emailed PDF Communication Log of what Download has imported each day, you might want to consider using Activities instead. Download Activities is especially important if you utilize the Instant Download feature – a Communication Log generated multiple times throughout the day would not be efficient for the system or your Account Managers. While you can change the report to run at a specific time rather than after each time a Download occurs, Activities will ultimately prove to be easier to manage, and they mirror the same information on the Communication Log.

With most employees now working from home, Download Activities is more practical than printing a daily Communication Log. It is better to keep the information in the system rather than having each Account Manager have multiple printed pages or PDFs to sort through and manage. Activities are also a great way to schedule your time and workload – if you cannot get to a particular activity or account that day, you can easily change the follow-up date on your Home Screen.

Setup Tasks on Download Activities

Though Download does provide a streamlined way to get through your daily workload by processing changes and attaching documents for you, it is still essential that the Account Manager review certain activities Download generates before closing them. Setting tasks on Download Activities provides a checklist for the Account Managers to ensure what Download processed is accurate and complete with no further actions needed for that workflow. Setting tasks prevents any E&O exposures as, while Download is a fantastic feature, it is still important to double-check your work.

To accommodate these Download features, you may find that some workflows may need to be updated, or additional training is necessary. However, proper configuration of each of these tools will lead to more efficiency within Applied Epic. Implementing Download can help you attach documents to accounts faster, provide an improved view of your daily activities and workload, and can update accounts instantly as changes occur. For more information or help setting up Download for your agency, contact us at consult@kitetechgroup.com for a free consultation.