Benchmarking reports are only useful when the results are actionable and relevant to the business’ goals. Milliman consultants bring the insight to connect your business goals and challenges to metrics and make comparisons that count. Our consultants use these studies to identify areas of strength and weakness, which help to uncover gaps in performance. Milliman benchmarking reports provide practical advice for setting targets for improvement.

Getting specific about comparisons

Depending on the business needs, Milliman can examine your overall experience or a particular subset, such as line of business, group, or diagnosis. Choosing which results or processes should be benchmarked—or can be benchmarked—is critical, and depends on the mature insight we bring to the project. For example, we can tell you whether it makes sense for your organization to compare itself to commercial utilization, case management controls, or provider contracts benchmarks.

Finding the healthcare holy grail: cutting costs, not benefits

Employer groups and carriers continue to face healthcare trends that exceed inflation. Milliman consultants, supported by our data and proprietary tools, are uniquely positioned to assist both employer groups and carriers to understand which services offer the most opportunity to reduce cost without reducing benefits.

A midsized carrier did not want to reduce benefit offerings but was concerned with recent healthcare trends. We were able to produce benchmarks applicable to the benefit design, demographics, and area for the carrier to compare to its experience. Our benchmarks applied to both utilization and charge. As a result, the carrier was able to identify services for which it was overpaying in relationship to the current environment. When the contracts for these services came up for renewal, the carrier negotiated more competitive rates. Additionally, our analysis allowed the carrier’s medical management department to identify the services where the largest opportunity for savings existed.