One of the biggest challenges employer groups have faced during COVID-19 is a lack of perspective on the overall cost and utilization of their employees’ COVID-19 testing and treatment. They have employee claims data – and maybe their health plan’s data to compare against – but they need national benchmarks to better understand their accounts’ strengths and concerning trends.

“What we are hearing from our large employer groups is that they want more data about their COVID-19 experience,” said Vanessa Lyons, Director, Employer Reporting and Consulting at Premera Blue Cross. “They really want to be able to compare to national norms because, as we know, each state has been taking a different approach to mandates.”

“They want to know if their experience is different due to demographics, their industry, or regional practices. They want to know what the differences are and what they can do about them,” said Lyons.

To answer these questions, health plans need access to A) a national healthcare claims database that is broad enough to generate reliable comparisons; and B) an analytics engine that is powerful and versatile enough to cross this national data set with an account’s claims history.

The National Benchmarking Module (NBM) from Blue Health Intelligence® (BHI®) offers both. It draws from BHI’s National Data Repository, one of the nation’s largest healthcare claims databases, with over 24 billion claims and 234 million unique members. Then, the NBM runs data through an analytic engine to produce dashboards and KPIs.

Plan users can then generate pixel-perfect reports of their findings, resulting in better, more insightful information for their employer groups.

“We’ve always known the NBM is a powerful tool, but it has really delivered during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Kevin O’Mara, Vice President of Product Management at BHI. “The NBM’s ability to provide reliable comparisons – by comorbidity, geography, or related condition – has been invaluable for employer groups.”

The geographic dimension alone is especially valuable for companies with employees in many states. By accessing the NBM’s national data, health plans can reliably generate benchmarks for those employers in areas where they wouldn’t otherwise have enough data.

To see what insights the NBM can provide for your plan’s accounts – both for COVID-19 management and for a broader perspective on healthcare cost and utilization – contact BHI.