Employers want to get their employees enrolled in benefits as fast as possible. But delivering speed and simplicity at this critical step is challenging, especially when relying on manual systems of data exchange like EDI files, PDF forms, and manual data entry.

Nowhere is this more apparent than group structure mapping — the process of matching a group’s account structure within a ben-admin system to the fields and records within a carrier’s system.

Today, mapping entails large spreadsheet libraries and custom code that still require manually keying data. For most operations teams, these processes are time-consuming, vulnerable to errors, and all too often impact billing or worse, disrupt and delay coverage.

That’s why we created the Noyo Group Structure Mapping tool, the industry’s first UI-based solution for group structure mapping. Currently in beta, our tool helps benefits software replace manual workflows with an API-powered interface that automatically pulls mappable fields from the carrier’s system and places employees in the right bill groups, categories, and classes.

Here’s a closer look at how we’re making group structure mapping simpler by helping our partners get their groups connected and ready for enrollment in three days or less.

What is group structure mapping?

Before a ben-admin can manage enrollment and eligibility for a given group, they must first map their group structures to the carrier so the carrier knows how to interpret member changes when sent. It’s a painstaking process, managed in massive documents listing out employees’ personal details like name, address, SSN, plus the same all over again for dependents and/or spouses.

This tedious step is important because without correct group details, it’s impossible to enroll employees in coverage, manage their eligibility over time, or generate accurate bills. When employees can’t use their benefits when they expect them to be there, it negatively impacts their life in major ways — ultimately eroding trust in their employers and insurance providers.

What makes mapping such a hard problem to solve?

Benefits technology providers haven’t been able to solve the group structure mapping problem for many of the same reasons that make it a tough process in the first place. The deep complexity between carriers and platforms inhibits standardization and solutions that scale.

Here are some of factors at play when approaching group structure mapping with technology:

• Different terms used by different stakeholders. E.g. plan names shown to employees during plan selection don’t often match internal names in a carrier’s system.

• Each carrier has a different system for defining group structures. With each carrier designing plans and billing codes differently, it makes it almost impossible  to achieve a single, repeatable process.

• Mapping is done on a per-group basis. Each group has a different mix of employee types, classes, geographies, etc., so there’s no way to apply the same rules to everyone.

With no one place capturing all the variables, it’s been very challenging for new solutions to remove friction from this process. The good news is, the proliferation of modern technology like APIs in the employee benefits space has made it possible for all that to change.

How Noyo is simplifying mapping

We knew there had to be a better way for our benefits software partners to get through the group structure mapping step and quickly enroll members in coverage. So we created a UI-based solution to the data mapping problem.

Easy to understand and use, our tool marries clean design with API functionality to make mapping way less work. With it, users can quickly create rule sets that define how members should be identified according to carrier categories like benefit class or bill group.