One of the most challenging aspects of Benefits Administration today stems from managing the many complexities of employee information from the perspective of preserving data integrity. When choosing an outsourced benefits administration provider – or auditing your current provider – it is important to assess that their underlying technology capabilities and infrastructure is capable of assuring data integrity and accuracy.
We define Data Integrity in the context of benefits administration as maintaining and assuring the accuracy and consistency of employee data over its entire lifecycle. Your data must be as correct and up-to-date as possible, both when going into a system and going forward within the system. Data Integrity is essential because errors or gaps in your data can drive up the cost of unanticipated corrective action. Inaccuracies in data, for example, can cause overpayments for ineligible dependents, wrong tier coverage classification, or misreporting on Affordable Care Act compliance, which can lead to significant penalties in monetary fines.
