Using technology to shift work across companies-- should be illegal?

[GroG]

This information is a real life situation that I'm going to tell you about (I'm gathering the requirements for this system to be built), tell me if I'm just being paranoid or if you really think this is an issue that needs laws or legislation against.

The insured/dental customer goes to get their teeth worked on, and fills out the insurance claim form while in the waiting room to have the insurance company pay for/pay for part of their treament. The receptionist then receives the completed form from the customer and puts it in an envelope and mails it to the insurance company. The insurance company has a data entry person enter the form into their claims system and it is processed and saved into their database.

A new system is being built so that the claims system "feed", if you will, is online. So now, the customer fills out the paper form in the office and hands it to the receptionist, and the receptionist goes online to fill out the e-form which is sent electronically to the insurance company and fed into their claims system.

Think about it-- it completely removes the job of the data entry person at the insurance company. On top of that, it moves the work of entering the data to the dental company. The two company's are not affiliated in any way.

Think about the man hours that are probably involved in this process per year. Don't you think there should be laws against this?

[Prozerran]

If the data entry position is removed, that's less money the company has to spend on paying that person, which we all hope would lower the cost of insurance. I don't see the problem here.

[Toucan]

Unemployment because of advancement has been an issue since the creation of the windmill.

You cant force businesses to maintain old less profitable practices, if we could we would all still be riding around on horseback for fear of putting so many stable hands out of work.

[ClintonM]

The funny thing is that people will only care about this when it's their job on the line ;). Commonplace for people...

From a Business/Profit standpoint I'd probably go with the new way myself, but this would also open up new jobs for maintenance I'm sure so it would balance it out.

However, the electronic system allows for easier fraud...

[GroG]

I think you guys are missing a critical part of this point I'm trying to make. Yes, I think it sucks that the data entry person would lose their job or whatever, but the part I don't understand is how the work of entering the data onto the system has completely shifted from the responsibility of the insurance company to the dental office. The dental office's role in the insurance claim was previously to just traffic the form from the dental office to the insurance company. Now, their role is to completely enter the form online.

What if a problem arises? What if data is incorrectly entered? Is it the dental office's fault since now their receptionist enters the data? What if they don't submit (accidentally misuses the e-form or forgets) the data and the claim was never filed?

And on top of that, now the dental office has to spend more money entering the data (man hours) instead of just putting it into and envelope and sending it on.

[Toucan]

Ok, I understand what you are saying, however it is just another change in business practice. Agents for insurance companies make money from being agents. The dentist is being paid well.
Having some one on site to process a claim and make sure everything is correct as you stand there and complete it is much better than waiting for snail mail, especially as the dentist will most likely want you to pay the bill out of your own pocket while you sort out any discrepancies with your insurer.

[LinkTheGameFreak]

I think you guys are missing a critical part of this point I'm trying to make. Yes, I think it sucks that the data entry person would lose their job or whatever, but the part I don't understand is how the work of entering the data onto the system has completely shifted from the responsibility of the insurance company to the dental office. The dental office's role in the insurance claim was previously to just traffic the form from the dental office to the insurance company. Now, their role is to completely enter the form online.

What if a problem arises? What if data is incorrectly entered? Is it the dental office's fault since now their receptionist enters the data? What if they don't submit (accidentally misuses the e-form or forgets) the data and the claim was never filed?

And on top of that, now the dental office has to spend more money entering the data (man hours) instead of just putting it into and envelope and sending it on.

Most likely this kind of advance will not lose a current job entirely - as my experience has taught me, usually it just allows another avenue for data to be received (usually quicker) so that claims can be received quicker, thus actually benefiting both the company and the insured individual and saving untold amounts of time in calls and letters being sent and so forth.

Typically the claims form is sent via fax where I lived or submitted online, and it just seems to work better. Either way, it's not really shifting work across companies, it's only eliminating the middle man as well as a seemingly useless job left over from a non-digital era. It's almost like saying that you oppose the current US mail service because it doesn't afford the Pony Express anymore work. :)

edit: consider that the dentist's office fills in the paper form wrong to begin with and sends it in, waits a week to get any response from the insurer then finds out they fucked up to begin with. The advantage of having a digital input is that there will have to be a monitor checking the input from the dentist offices anyways, of course, there will be less manual labor (meticulous typing, et all) but the possibility of error will narrow. Think about the dentist office. Unless you go to something like a very general place like a Sears dental center, chances are that your dentist KNOWS you and chances are that the staff knows you, especially if it's a family dentist that has been working on you and your kin for years. Them screwing up a name or a vital piece of information on the computer screen is less likely than if they were to manually handwrite out a form and send it in and someone at the central receiving at the insurers who cannot read their handwriting and then from there fuck up vital info.

The concept of these innovations is to cut out as many people from beginning to end and thus reduce the chance of error. Think of a game of telephone. Anytime you transmit info in most any analog form you lose something in the translation; think of talking on a phone or (the other example i cited) hand-writing out a form. Each of those kind of things introduces a variable that could essentially introduce human error.

I had a problem recently for the past 2 months with Chase banks - I had applied for a student loan for 5k to cover the rest of my school costs this year and after applying online and entering my base info (name, DOB, SSN, address, etc) they told me that according to what they got from that info (my SSN, most likely) that I was pre-approved for a loan and were going to mail me a promissory note and once I sent that back in they would mail me a check. Well, weeks went by and no mail - and I won't go into every detail here (as it really does merit a thread of its own) but here's what happened pretty much:

Called between 6-10 times. Each time, the operator told me something contradictory about the status of my account (the first time they said my package had been sent. the second time they said it hadn't been sent. 6th time they told me they needed addition info. the 7th time they said they already had the info I had just resent them). By the time I finally got my check, it took 2 months from start to end before I actually got the check because one person told me I had to wait to get the promissory note and had to mail it back, then another person told me I could fax it, then yet another person said that I couldn't download the promissory note and fill in the info because it was a legal document, but then ANOTHER person said that I COULD download it and send it back (but of course this was already AFTER they claimed to have sent me 3 promissory note packages after I said I never received them, and by the time I was told I could download it, I already received one of them in the mail the next day.)

The point is that had I been allowed to enter my own info in all at once online or told the right info from the getgo, it would not have taken 2 months to end this fiasco and thus saved me from getting ulcers and pretty much losing my hair from the stress of having missed my first payment because my check hadn't arrived and all the other shit that happened because of "too many cooks"