Kiplinger’s T. Eric Reich recently published an article on how health insurance is generally seen as a huge hurdle for retirees. Reich proposes that finding affordable coverage could be simpler than you might think. 

While there are of course lots of reasons that people might not retire, from a lack of income to a lack of identity outside of their role as an employee, one of the more popular reasons is the fear of losing health insurance. 

Medicare doesn’t allow people to take advantage of its services until age 65, meaning that people who might want to retire early generally wait a few extra years instead of jumping through a series of imagined hoops to maintain coverage. But, Reich, argues – it might not have to be this difficult. 

He elaborates, “For clients who retire before 65, most of the money they live off first could be money in their checking/savings accounts or non-IRA money… If this is the case, when applying for health insurance, your low income could cause your premiums to be much lower than you anticipated.”

Does this mean early retirement might be more realistic for more people? Well, as Reich says, “This is not an endorsement for the ACA but a way to provide options and clarity on a topic that can be uncomfortably confusing.” 

Read the rest of the article for specifics on how Obamacare offers options that could potentially help you retire earlier than expected. 

For more insights and information – applicable to the health insurance industry and beyond – check out our latest blog posts or contact us to learn how Help On Demand’s technology can impact your business’ bottom line and remove barriers for your customer base.

Crashes, increased costs, holes in your security, regulatory risks… the list goes on. Outdated technology is problematic in a sense that goes beyond the annoyance of the ever-present spinning rainbow ball.

When occasional frustration turns into a  functional problem, that’s when you know it’s time to upgrade. Because, sure, nobody has time to wait for that video to buffer – but cybersecurity risks and financial repercussions are obviously more damaging to your company in the long run than a few minutes lost waiting for a page to load. 

Let’s talk about the most common issue first – crashes. 

In today’s our Zoom-addicted business world, it might feel like something is “off” when you make it through a full week of meetings with no technical difficulties. We’re so used to various systems being down that it almost seems inevitable that someone’s camera won’t work, you’ll have to call into the meeting, or your Google Calendar will totally forget to remind you about that call you were supposed to make. 

But in the “on-demand” culture that we’ve built for ourselves, a crash that results in any significant amount of downtime can and will encourage customers to take their business somewhere else. While your bottom line is always a concern, lost time and trust are much more valuable things to lose – and a shoddy website prone to problems is a quick way to get there. 

Of course, cost is always a factor. 

It might seem like a major investment to overhaul your technology, but it can actually be more expensive to maintain outdated systems. In fact, a 2016 survey found that U.S. businesses lose up to $1.8 billion each year in wasted productivity due to obsolete technology.

Before you know it, you’ve created a bottleneck where your employees don’t have the tools they need to help your customers – a scenario where nobody is the winner. 

The other major concern associated with outdated technology is security. As of this year, enterprises experience 130 security breaches per year, per organization, on average. 

What’s the takeaway here? 

More likely than not, it’s time to updated your system. If you’re ready to take advantage of fast, cutting-edge technology like Help On Demand’s system, request a demo and take the first step towards creating a customized technology solution that works for you and your company.

Michael Jackowski, Forbes Council Member, recently published an article detailing how personalized digital experiences were becoming the norm in terms of what consumers expect from mobile and web interactions with the insurance market. You can read the full thing here, but we thought we’d give you our two cents. 

The main point the article seems to be making is simple: “Let your technology partners be your champions”. Jackowski goes on to explain how technology helps companies and consumers – allowing insurance providers to meet customers where they are by focusing on personalization and engagement. 

This increased demand a focus on communication – even in an industry that is becoming more and more digitally-driven – proves the importance of fast connections with the right people. 

Not only do customers know what they want, they know what they need – and those needs are different for each individual consumer. For insurers to effectively fix problems for the people they work to serve, they need to be listening.

According to a worldwide survey from Bain & Company, of nearly 175,000 insurance customers, value, quality and ease of use are highly important factors when it comes to lasting loyalty. And in an increasingly digitized marketplace, the ability to harness technology to deliver an online customer experience that makes customers feel as secure as they would after shaking their brokers hand is invaluable. 

The good news for you is that there is ample space to do this. The truth is, most insurance companies can’t consistently deliver the kind high-level customer experience that has become expected. Most customers (especially millennials that are online natives) are more than ready to switch to providers that can readily meet their needs. 

Help On Demand uses Intelligent Lead Distribution to make sure that the right customer is contacted by the right broker, every time. From location to language, our algorithm looks at several key factors that will drastically increase the chances of a positive customer experience. 

Let us demonstrate how smart technology works better. Contact us today.

And how will it affect you? 

An individual health coverage reimbursement agreement (ICHRA), an arrangement made possible by Trump administration regulations, gives employers of any size the opportunity to reimburse any premiums their employees might be paying for individually-purchased insurance. 

As of this year, it is estimated that up to 200,000 people currently receive ICHRA benefits. 

This is a big shakeup that gives employers looking to provide health insurance to their employees a new option. 

ICHRA’s reimbursement model is simpler than traditional group benefits packages for a few reasons. First of all, it allows the reimbursements to be tax-free. ICHRA also allows for higher limits and individually-tailored design and qualifications as opposed to traditional one-size-fits all group plans. This makes it appealing for lots of employers. 

So, how does an ICHRA plan work? 

First, business owners decide how much they’ll reimburse each month. Whether the rates are determined by socioeconomic status, family size, or a variety of other factors is up to the employer. Employees then individually determine which health plan works best for them. When qualified medical expenses arise, the employer submits receipts and them facilitates the reimbursement. 

ICHRA’s conception stems from unintended results of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that effectively stopped the practice of reimbursement. A bill signed by President Obama just before he left office created ICHRA’s predecessor – the Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement (QSEHRA) – which allowed small employers who met a certain set of guidelines to reinstate the practice of reimbursing for individual insurance claims. 

Two years, later, new regulations were proposed that expanded the acceptability of these arrangements to include employers of any size. 

By 2034, it is estimated that between 10 and 50 million people could be covered by ICHRA. 

Can we definitively say it’s better than a traditional health insurance plan? 

It might be too soon. But from a bird’s eye view, things look relatively promising. 

There’s undoubtedly more cost-control for the employer, and the chance of an unforeseen group increase drops to zero. However, an ICHRA plan does tend to run employers about 10-20% more in expenses than traditional plans would. 

But for a lot of people, that slight increase is worth it if there’s less risk involved. 

Employers can spend less time worrying about managing their employee’s individual health risks and trying to find a group plan that works for everyone. And from an employee’s perspective, the ability to take a plan that they pick to their next job in the event of layoffs or a new job opportunity means one less thing to stress about. 

It will be interesting to see if this new arrangement takes off the way it is predicted to. 

If you have questions about ICHRA or other health insurance industry updates, make sure to stay updated on our blog.

Far too many businesses – across all industries – are STILL focused on product and pricing alone when it comes to winning new customers and retaining old ones. 

But in today’s fast-paced on-demand environment, the numbers paint a clear picture. In fact, just a one second delay can lead to more than a 15% drop in customer satisfaction and nearly 65% of customers expect interaction-based, individual, tailored engagements from knowledgable associates. 

All of this boils down to an invaluable concept: Intelligent Lead Distribution. 

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at what this is, why it’s so important, and how it can increase your close ratio and ROI. 

Your salespeople can only be as successful as the selling tools you’re using allow them to be. Especially in the wake of COVID-19, sales professionals are having to totally shift from a pre-pandemic way of doing business to one that takes place in an entirely different landscape. 

Yes, the problems that your product or service solves for the customer are still important. And sure, a good salesperson that can intelligently speak to those features and benefits is still a plus. But more and more, it seems to matter less what you’re selling and more how you’re selling. 

If you aren’t attempting to reach customers how they want (or need) to be reached, you  won’t reach them at all. 

To make sure you’re doing all you can to stop missing out on lost opportunities, click here to register for our IntelliLead webinar– a chance to ensure that your company and sales team has the tools it needs to transform its bottom line.

It is no secret that technology has revolutionized the way that companies handle data, communicate with their consumers, and are ultimately perceived. To say it is the force behind modern business is not hyperbolic. For these reasons, a certain level of connectivity is vital for a modernized approach to customer experience.

Here at Help On Demand, we know how important this is – in fact, it’s a huge part of how we connect businesses to their end consumers.

User experience is key to business success. If potential clients or customers can’t be serviced when and where they like, they will find another option. We live in an age of around the clock, 24/7 service, where missed connections can be the breaking point for an otherwise prosperous business model, and not just a sad subsection of Craigslist.

This need for instantaneous results can seem like a huge hurdle to jump over, but in reality, it’s an opportunity.

Increasing the connectivity of your brand and business can help boost a wide range of KPIs like social capital and brand awareness, all while generating leads that can become genuine, long-lasting connections. In short, a focus on connectivity can drive your brand to a new level of success.

Because of this, businesses need to think outside the box when it comes to creative ways to connect with their customers and stay top-of-mind. Regardless of industry, workplace practices, and other factors, this remains true. Not to mention, the best experience (for both customers and employees) generally involves an open dialogue between consumer and provider.

As one of our customers said in a testimonial, “The idea of allowing insurance agents to work with marketplace consumers was a great opportunity. The technology, the simplicity of it, really helped us to facilitate that dialogue.”

Let’s use that customer experience as an example, and talk a little bit more about the insurance industry. When a consumer goes to the federal health insurance marketplace, healthcare.gov, they can easily get contact information for agents and brokers in their area simply by clicking the “Find Local Help” button. Those agents and brokers can then provide immediate assistance directly to the people in their ZIP codes that need it most. In 15 minutes or less, an agent will contact that consumer, help them enroll, and answer any other questions they may have.

If we expect this kind of customer experience when we buy a pair of shoes or order food online, why don’t we demand the same level of attentiveness when making the big decisions in life like how to protect ourselves with insurance, how to close a deal on that new house, or how to educate our children?

Everybody is an expert when it comes to something. Let us help your customers find you. Call us at 1-888-245-1922 or email us at info@nullhelpondemand.com for a quick chat about modernizing your approach.

It’s 7am. You need a last minute substitute teacher before school starts in an hour.

Unfortunately, this is a problem that is currently being faced in school districts across the country.

More and more, school districts are relying heavily on substitute teachers to fill vacant positions that are open because of a lack of people who want to work in the post-Covid era as well as ensure classrooms are staffed when teachers are out for unpredictable absences and illness.

The decline in the quality (and quantity) of these candidates has to do with a lot of factors, but it is largely due to the current job market. There are many alternative forms of employment for people with the same qualifications, and like we mentioned above, there is a compounded lack of motivation from a large portion of the workforce after more than a year of Covid-related uncertainty.

These different factors add up to lots of headaches for administration offices at schools in Colorado and beyond – and solving the problem can seem more difficult than it needs to.

The first thought a lot of people have is to bring in a staffing agency to act as a “middle man”, so to speak.

However, bringing in a “middle man” leads to lack of control, higher costs and less autonomy for the school and administration. When the relationship between quality of learning and student success is so codependent, you can’t leave anything to chance.

Not to mention, your hands are full.

You have a school to run, and you don’t have the time to manually contact a long list of candidates that may or may not fit the bill.

So, what’s the solution?

Help On Demand connects available substitute teachers so you can fill open classrooms, which means you don’t have to stress at 7am. We offer you a direct relationship to teachers who help you keep your students connected, live and on-demand 24/7. Our technology is configured to your needs and can even be white labeled and branded specifically for your school. Plus, we automate the process, finding available substitutes that fit your specific needs.

Let us show you the difference we can make for your students today.

Now that tele-dentistry has been accepted as a viable option for the modern patient and looks like it’s here to stay, the question is… 

“How can dentists make sure that they’re still really connecting with their patients through a screen?” 

First of all, it’s important to remember that all of this is still relatively new. Prior to COVID-19 introducing us to the broader benefits of tele-health as a concept, it wasn’t at all the norm. We’re still navigating how tele-medicine will continue to mature and how we can continue to offer care from a safe distance.

There are a few ways that tele-health has shown its merits, some of which are: 

• Live video chat

Talk to a dentist online anytime by mobile app, phone or web. Seeing a 

professional “face-to-face” via video chat makes patients feel like they’re still getting the same level of care they would in an office. 

• Remote patient monitoring & electronic delivery of supportive care information

Patient data is electronically sent to a provider for supportive care. This can help dentists make diagnoses and determine if someone needs to be seen in the chair for more hands-on work.

• Secure storage of all images and digital impressions taken during the tele-visit 

Before treatment, a patient might complete a short online questionnaire. If any physical information needs to be recorded, patients could be mailed an at-home impression kit before their appointment. The patient could then upload their

results to the practice’s website for their dentist to review as opposed to having digital impressions taken in the dental office. 

One of the obvious players here is Zoom – they have an entire branch of their company dedicated to servicing providers and organizations in the healthcare space. They offer secure video that keeps things not only confidential but complaint. Organizations like Magellan Healthcare and even Johns Hopkins are all Zoom tele-health advocates. There are also software packages (like Simplifeye and Solutionreach, to name just a few) that combine things like live web chat, a virtual front desk, and online payment processing. 

The benefits continue to reveal themselves. Dental providers are now able to treat patients in a variety of health compromised situations, provide virtual access to preventative care screenings and easily connect patients with specialists they might have less access to offline. 

As technology continues to get smarter, the applications will only continue to multiply. 

Younger patients will gravitate to this more quickly than their older counterparts for the simple reason that their lives already are online in a much larger sense. However, older patients are actually set to benefit most from remote dentistry. Mobility challenges and other health complications routinely force elderly people to postpone needed dental consultation until it’s too late. Virtual appointments could be the perfect solution.

The faster that dental practices can inform their patients of all their tele-dentistry options, the faster they can start filling appointments. Especially in the COVID-19 era, patients need extra reassurance that someone can connect them with a medical professional quickly – and that the person they’re matched with can offer the help they need. 

Waiting rooms are awful, whether they’re virtual or not. And no one wants to wait. With Help On Demand, they won’t have to… ever.

Since the pandemic began almost two full years ago, technology has become more and more important to nearly every industry and business sector. Slowly, mortgage lenders have come around to the idea that innovation and technology are two major factors in driving both business continuity and business success. 

The ability to connect customers immediately to loan officers who can close loans fast, as well as fill gaps when there is a shortage of people can ensure you stay competitive in the current industry environment.

Speaking of industry environment, let’s look at where the mortgage industry currently stands. There is an increased amount of competition within the larger space of home lending, as well as a shortage of properties and loan officers. Take all those factors, add them up, and things can quickly get overwhelming.

However, there’s a factor we’re not considering.

Speed.

Getting those loan applications to your sales team/loan officers within seconds 24/7 allows you to close more business anywhere in the nation, giving you a huge competitive advantage. Here at Help On Demand, many of our team members have spent time in the mortgage lending industry with both traditional and reverse, and we have the experience to back up our claims. 

Some of the questions lenders might want to be asking themselves are, “How can I keep up with increased loan applications?” “How can I become more efficient?” “How can I increase the profit per loan application?” and “How can I provide a better customer experience?” 

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a solution that is available 24/7, live and on-demand anywhere in the country that would immediately connect your consumer with one of your sales team members in real-time through technology, all while providing you with that elusive competitive advantage we discussed earlier? 

Luckily, an answer to all of those questions exists with Help On Demand. 

HOD proves the most important aspects of the in-person buying process – trust, reliability and availability, which can be successfully transferred to an online space powered by technology. We’ve successfully connected hundreds of thousands of Consumers to referred Experts without missing a single one. 

Let us help you next.

This almost goes without saying, but conversions, client acquisition costs and ROI are the ultimate indicators when it comes to determining a company’s level of success – both in terms of individual campaigns and overall business.

Leveraging affective technology like Help On Demand is an excellent way to increase those indicators. 

For your salesforce to be successful, you need to interact with customers and targets in a more meaningful, impactful way than the competition. Nurturing leads, providing a great customer experience and guiding them through the many steps in the sales cycle takes time and resources, two of the most valuable commodities in today’s business world. 

In many cases, companies simply don’t have the manpower, time and resources to make sure that none of their potential leads fall through the cracks. This might sound like a “good problem” to have, but it has the potential to be any otherwise successful business’ downfall. 

Why? 

Because regardless of how popular your product or service is, how tenacious your salespeople are, and how well you treat your customer, if just one lead gets left behind, you’re leaving money on the table. You can’t afford to let your customers get picked off by more nimble competitors just because you didn’t have the time to investigate the solutions which would make a real difference for your bottom line. 

Of course, your bottom line isn’t just numbers anymore – it’s the people those numbers represent. Offering the support and help your customers expect and need (and faster than the completion) helps to position you as a “people first” kind of company, which is a huge plus in today’s marketplace of perception. 

Help On Demand delivers an exceptional customer experience, leaving your clients feeling secure in the fact that they will get the help they need in just seconds, 24/7, “live and on demand” – every time. Our team here will work with your business to provide strategy and integrate our technology with the systems you already have running in as little as 45 days. 

Additionally, we can provide “real-time” reporting packages that illustrate referral engagement outcomes. Our technology then tracks and reports activity to provide the metrics you need to identify what’s working, what isn’t, and how to make even more successful connections. 

Stop wasting time. Start making connections. Set up a demo today.