We have all heard about the myriad ways the economy has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Shutdowns and stay-at-home orders in the spring of 2020 were followed by shifts in the workforce, some of which are likely to be permanent. Specifically, during the pandemic, close to 70 percent of full-time employees worked from home, according to a survey by Owl labs. The same survey found that 92 percent of respondents expect to work from home at least one day per week after COVID-19, and 80 percent expected to work at least 3 days from home per week.

Most employers hadn’t prepared for their entire workforce to work from home prior to 2020, but thanks to technology and innovation, the shift to remote work has been manageable for many employers. Responses to COVID-19 have fast-forwarded the adoption of digital technologies by several years, according to a recent poll of executives—and you can expect many of these changes to be here long into the future.

The impact of both employment trends and innovation and automation on workers’ compensation claims organizations have been significant, to say the least.

Like businesses in other industries, claims organizations have had to adapt to remote work, while also dealing with a more challenging problem of finding workers to fill open positions, especially for qualified and experienced claims adjusters.

Once again, it is technology and innovation that are helping claims organizations stay afloat, despite these employment challenges.

At Acrometis, we understand a seasoned adjuster’s intuition is important in keeping a claim on track. That’s why our systems automate many of the easy, yet error-prone tasks that take up too much of the adjuster’s time. And when there are fewer adjusters available to handle the steady volume of workers’ comp claims, it’s vital that the adjusters you have are as efficient as possible.

Acrometis surveyed workers’ compensation adjusters – before the pandemic – and found that their workload averages 130 open cases, 20 bills from 6 different providers, and 20 additional documents per claim, with 7,800 CPT codes and 68,000 ICD-10 codes to manage. Phew! We don’t need a post-pandemic survey to see that adjusters’ workloads have gotten more intense.

Efficiencies gained through our systems give adjusters 40 percent more time in their day. Your adjusters can now use the time they get back to make the difficult decisions only an experienced adjuster can.

Our system takes the pressure off adjusters by auto-adjudicating up to 65 percent of incoming documents (our system recognizes more than 130 form types), preventing human error and reducing time-consuming tasks. Now, your adjusters can focus on high-level, skilled work.

Plus, our systems help claims organizations suffering from a shortage of bill reviewers, as they can evaluate bills for relatedness (you won’t pay for unrelated bills anymore), route to the correct bill review process, and eliminate non-compensable medical costs and duplicates. We typically reject nearly a third of bills from the beginning, and 58 percent of those rejected bills never get returned.

With claims adjusters and bill reviewers in such high demand, the need for automation in the claims processing industry is booming. Fortunately, Acrometis is also working quickly to develop innovations to improve efficiencies and automate work.

Acrometis offers a variety of tools and solutions to automate and improve your claims processing operations and ensure success. Visit our website, www.acrometis.com or call 1-855-282-1476 to learn how we can make life easier and better for your adjusters and bill reviewers today.