If you currently offer, or would like to offer, debit card administration to your various employer groups and plan participants, consider whether or not your administrative system has a real-time connection with the debit card administration company. Why? Because then you are far less likely to accidentally overpay on the debit card balance.

Debit cards are already a popular tool for use in conjunction with flexible spending accounts (FSAs) - and support is growing for their utilization with health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs).

While these cards are a tremendous convenience for plan participants, they can present a major headache for plan administrators if the member's account isn't in synch with current plan activity or if dollars are not applied appropriately when a coordination between two or more benefits is required (i.e., pay standard medical first, HRA second, FSA third or any other combination established by the plan).

What to Look For

  • You need a debit card strategy that delivers real-time integration with your claims processing system - cumbersome daily- or nightly-only data exchanges can leave you at risk, as some manual transactions could be charged against the account that are not posted when the data exchange takes place.

  • Today's plans are much more complicated and must take into consideration the order of benefits application when a combination of benefits is in play - as when a plan offers the option to utilize both an FSA and an HRA. You need an integrated solution capable of applying the right calculation and plan benefit BEFORE the debit card is hit with the amount due.

Administrators considering their debit card options should consider the tightly integrated consumer benefits payment platform that includes the TriZetto QicLink Extended Enterprise System with the Benefits Card from Metavante. The Metavante partnership with TriZetto enables TPAs to offer a full suite of cash account products to complement their consumer-directed product lines and services - FSA, HSA, HRA or any combination thereof.

Clients choosing the HSA option will also be able to use the Benefits Card in conjunction with the services of Mellon Bank to administer the savings account.

Enhance Revenue Growth

The QicLink integrated benefit debit card solution has been in operation for Creative Plan Administrators (CPA) since March 1st of 2006. Four of the employer groups served by CPA are providing the debit card in conjunction with a consumer-directed plan and they are happy with the convenience and ease-of-use that this option affords. According to Ed O'Brien, President of Creative Plan Administrators, LLC,
"We've got a good strategy and access to TriZetto's broad range of integrated products and services to help us grow and help our clients manage plan costs as efficiently and cost effectively as possible."

While CPA has chosen to access this functionality through OptionServices Group (OSG), TriZetto's benefits administration BPO services unit - it is also available on a licensed or hosted basis. Additional implementations of the integrated Metavante debit card solution are scheduled to begin in October.

For more information on TriZetto's Consumer-Directed Solutions, including the integrated Metavante debit card option, please click here or call Ted Tamul at (630) 428-5326.



Copyright © 2006 The TriZetto Group, Inc. All rights reserved. TriZetto is a registered trademarks; QicLink and QicLink Extended Enterprise are trademarks, of The TriZetto Group, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. The mention of such companies and product names is with due recognition and without intent to misappropriate such names or marks.