Deaconess Health System

Eight years ago, Deaconess Health System began working with a third party administrator to streamline the online benefits enrollment process for its (then) 2,500 employees. The goal was to move to a paperless system that would allow employee enrollment information to be gathered quickly and accurately.

The team evaluated nearly all online benefits enrollment products that were available then and chose the Empowered Benefits BenAdmin solution over the competition for a number of reasons, according to Sherri Armstrong Brown, Manager, Human Resources: “We were very impressed with the Empowered Benefits product, but we were equally intrigued by their small size and emphasis on constant product refinement and customer service.”

“A number of the vendors who approached us offered open enrollment solutions exclusively, but we didn’t want one process for open enrollment then another process for the remainder of the year,” adds Brown. “We were sold on the customization offered in the Empowered Benefits solution — and they’ve delivered.”

Empowered Benefits delivered a flexible benefits administration system that has evolved over time, just as Deaconess Health System has evolved. By remaining responsive to changing benefits enrollment and management needs, Empowered Benefits has been able to continually improve the system, from usability to reporting to ensuring Deaconess is able to collect all needed information from employees.

“Our team at Empowered Benefits is always willing to try new things to improve the product. We’ll ask for something, then they’ll implement a solution, then together, we’ll test it. If it makes sense, we’ll implement it for Deaconess,” says Brown. “It’s an ongoing solution that shapes itself to our specific needs at every turn.”

Deaconess Health System has experienced growth and change since first implementing the Empowered Benefits Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. The group now has 5,200 employees, and the HR department has add just one employee to handle the now doubled number of employees.

“The system allows us to concentrate on the important things for our employees, such as filing claims and following up on claims and improving our peoples’ wellbeing from an HR and benefits standpoint,” Brown notes. “That’s an added bonus above the cost savings we received through not having to add a larger number of HR administrators.”