A Cleveland health IT company is looking to make the health insurance enrollment process easier for small employers, workers and insurance companies.
FormFire’s online enrollment system guides applicants through an interview process that captures key medical information and the employee medical data can then be fed directly into a health insurer’s underwriting system.
The digital process saves the insurer the time and money associated with manually entering data and the structured nature of the online interview process ensures that applicants key in the proper information without leaving any important data out, FormFire co-founder Mike Epp said.
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“We’ve demonstrated the value of collecting this data digitally, which is more consistent and complete information,” Epp said.
FormFire’s customers are health insurers and brokers, while its service is free to employers and employees. Competitors include BrokerCEO and UBenefit, Epp said. It’s no coincidence that the small employer market (less than 100 workers) is FormFire’s sweet spot.
Due to the riskier nature of a small group, insurers in most markets require every single employee to fill out medical information forms, which helps the insurers better price risk into policies, according to Epp. For large employers, in contrast, insurers use previous medical claims history as well as the more predictable nature of large groups’ health status to anticipate risk, which reduces the need for such detailed employee information, Epp said.
FormFire’s service is appealing to employers and employees because they don’t have to fill out a form each time they apply for a quote from an insurance carrier (the fact that it’s free doesn’t hurt either.) Plus, for employees, the information is portable, meaning that they don’t have to fill out insurance forms every time they change jobs — assuming the new employer is also a FormFire user.
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Launched five years ago, FormFire has already made solid progress. The company works with about 50 insurers and 50,000 employers, said Epp, who got the idea to start FormFire while working for an insurance brokerage. Insurance clients include Medical Mutual of Ohio, UnitedHealthcare and Humana.
Up next for FormFire? Continued geographic expansion. The company started out acquiring customers in its home region around Cleveland and has been expanding throughout the country since.
