news&views Spring 2021 | Page 9

Gary Sawatzky | Chief Operating Officer , ARTA

ARTA successfully took over administration of the ARTA Retiree Benefits Plan on January 1 , 2021 . Now that we have completed the transition , I wanted to follow up on my winter news & views article to touch on some of our achievements and how we addressed the challenges that arose along the way .

One of the greatest benefits of self-administration is having one record for each ARTA member . When we used a third-party administrator , all member data ( contact information , benefits coverage , dependant information , and so on ) needed to be entered twice — once by ARTA and once by the plan administrator . There is always the chance for data entry errors when records are entered twice , and finding these errors is not always easy . Combining the two systems into one allowed us to do a comprehensive review of member data and correct any discrepancies between the two systems .

One piece of data that was missed during the initial data transfer was banking information for some members . Once we learned these members were being reimbursed by cheque instead of direct deposit , we provided their banking information to the adjudicator .

Call volumes were extremely high at the start of the administration roll-out . With all the changes being implemented at once , members were calling with questions . These questions took a lot of time to answer — especially for members who needed help enrolling in MyARTA . net . Knowing that new technology could pose a steep learning curve , we began hosting webinars to walk members through the enrolment process , how to submit a claim , and how to use the smartphone app . The webinars were well received and allowed us to answer many questions at the same time . This early success led to ARTA hosting additional webinars , specifically to answer as many member questions as we could at once . We also made recordings of the webinars available on the ARTA YouTube channel so members who were unable to attend could view

the walkthrough videos .

ARTA ’ s front-line staff quickly became adept at providing the information that members were looking for , even though each of them had to learn to use a brand new administration system , most were new employees of ARTA , and no one could have direct person-to-person interaction because of COVID-19 restrictions . If you have ever gone through a systems change in your career ( report card systems , time tracking systems , accounting systems , etc .), you can surely appreciate how difficult this can be . I must say , I am extremely proud of the Member Support team and how hard each of them has worked to make sure everyone ’ s questions were answered .

Another issue that we ran into during the transition was completely expected — the full claims experiences for November and December were not available until the middle of January due to the standard lag in data reporting from the benefits adjudicators . Once we received the final data reports , we passed them along to the new adjudicator so they could reference those prescription drug claims ( such as special authorization claims made in the past year ) and grandfather coverage for those particular medications . Once the final claims data was loaded , Green Shield Canada was able to review the recent claims , which may have been reduced by mistake , and make adjustments to ensure the coverage level with the new provider remained the same as before .

Now that ARTA has entered this next phase , we are pleased by the additional services we can begin to provide to members . Stay tuned for exciting announcements later this year .

news & views SPRING 2021 | 9