Making benefits administration easy for Froedtert Health

Coordinating health insurance benefit enrollment mailings for over 16,000 employees is a Herculean undertaking, with many moving pieces, government regulations that must be followed and deadlines that must be met. That’s why Froedtert Health uses Heritage Printing to print and distribute all its benefits enrollment material and to manage a variety of related new hire mailings throughout the year.

“We send out about 16,000 packets each year for our annual enrollment mailing and about 250 packets per month to new hires,” explains benefits specialist Amy Bruch. “These packages have some variations to them, depending on what group of employees are receiving them.” Keeping all that data accurate is a critical aspect of their relationship with Heritage.

Annual benefit enrollment campaigns have specific deadlines for employees to renew their insurance coverage. That means the enrollment mailings must be sent out on a timely basis.

“I work closely with our Heritage account executive to create the timetable for each mailing. We know what dates we need to hit and work backward from there to figure out the print production schedule and when we need to have our mailing lists finalized,” Bruch adds. “We also plan ahead, trying to anticipate the print quantities we’ll need for each piece so we don’t encounter any document shortages later.”

These mailings cover the lifecycle of Froedtert employees, from new hire enrollment packages to retirement packages and pension communications. In addition to the large annual enrollment mailing, Bruch works with Heritage to coordinate several smaller, targeted mailings to these specific audiences.

Heritage also warehouses all of the documents that must be included in these mailings, including benefit booklets, SBCs (summary of benefits coverage) and a variety of government notices that must be included in enrollment packages.

Bruch tries to keep all her department’s benefit mailings on schedule, but sometimes last-minute changes are required before a mailing can be sent out. It’s at times like these that she really appreciates the responsiveness of the Heritage team.

“We do our best to stay on top of everything. But sometimes, things happen. My account executive is easy to reach and is always very responsive. She and the Heritage team don’t complain. They just get to work and get it done. I’ve been working with them for over 15 years and they’ve never missed a deadline.”

In recent years, Bruch has worked with Heritage to figure out how enrollment mailings can be streamlined, to make them easier for everyone. “To reduce waste, we’re starting to make some enrollment materials available online. Employees can view them any time and they’re also easier to update the printed pieces,” she emphasizes.

“There’s no way I could do all of this as quickly as Heritage does,” she emphasizes.