New York and Saint Paul, Minn. – Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (MetLife) and Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc. renewed their agreement to offer Synchrony absence management services.Synchrony combines group disability insurance and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) administration from MetLife with workers compensation insurance and claim administration services from Travelers to deliver one, integrated approach that can help companies better manage employee absences whether due to occupational or non-occupational events and assist employees in returning to work as soon as medically appropriate. First offered by the two companies in 1998, Synchrony programs currently cover more than 180,000 employees.
Through the use of Travelers' CARMA system, the Synchrony team can combine workers compensation, short-term disability and long-term disability data, eliminating the need for employers to gather information from multiple systems and vendors. Synchrony integrated reports provide three levels of information:
- Detailed Operational Data: What activities are taking place daily?
- Outcomes Analysis: What impact is case management having on outcomes and where? What is working well? Are productivity gains being achieved?
- Business Metrics: What impact is Synchrony service having on your bottom line?
Synchrony customers have a number of different report options. Claim Detail Report, which shows a detailed list of all claimants and helps monitor claim status and track total payments. The Claim Activity Report shows the number of claims reported to track frequency and submission patterns. The Integrated Scorecard presents a snapshot of all key integrated measurements to monitor the overall plan performance at a glance. And these are just some of the options.
Key features of the Synchrony model include:
- Two customer leaders for each Synchrony customer--a disability point person and a workers compensation point person--to help implement and manage programs;
- Experienced claim and medical specialists collaborate on case management and return-to-work plans;
- A single, Travelers nurse lead for all concurrent occupational and non-occupational claims;
- "Real-time" data availability, Web-based tools for file review and electronic access to reports;
- Claim reporting over the phone or internet 24 hours a day/7 days a week;
- Integrated workers compensation and disability claim outcome reporting delivered to customers.
Source: Business Wire, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. and Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc.
