A groundbreaking incentive program stalled by poor vendor performance
In August 2022 the benefits team at major telecom company took one of its primary vendors off a major initiative. Only months before the vendor —a navigation solution — had been tagged to launch and manage an innovative new incentivization program and the vendor’s success seemed all but assured: the firm was publicly traded with a 15-year track record in managing programs on behalf of large employers and was deeply engrained in the telecom’s benefits ecosystem.But the sophistication of the program proved too much — it tracked a variety of activities over time, accounted for activity sequence and frequency, and, if implemented correctly, would lead to truly better health outcomes.
Unfortunately, the vendor began to stumble almost immediately, and the benefits team faced a familiar set of frustrations: denied requests, slow implementations, and little progress against key employee health metrics— primary care provider visits and sick days among them. The telecom’s benefits team knew the data it needed and how to incentivize employees, but program success would require a partner who could:
- Collect claims and participation data from plan administrators who were reticent to provide data
- Clean and standardize multiple streams of dirty data into a single source of truth
- Enable the telecom team to share data with other partners in the benefits ecosystem