 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Source: Humana, Inc. /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM - News) announced today the latest release of SmartStart(SM), a computer-based program that will allow Humana to model benefit pricing, contribution strategies and predictions of consumer plan choices to customize plan offerings and savings targets for employers. The new SmartStart release, developed in association with Icosystem Corporation, a world leader in the application of predictive sciences to complex environments with multiple variables, represents a significant advance in the predictive power of such underwriting tools. "This is a major advance in our ability to develop targeted, customized benefit solutions for employers," said Jonathan T. Lord, MD, chief innovation officer for Humana. "We're importing new techniques from disciplines outside the health insurance world to create a whole new approach to actuarial science. We've developed a recalibration engine that learns from itself to improve predictability over time. This is like moving from the Farmer's Almanac to Doppler Radar." SmartStart is designed to be used with Humana's SmartSuiteŽ, an innovative set of plan benefit bundles that offers broad choice to employees and has the ability to deliver substantial savings to employers. SmartSuite combines traditional health benefit products with new "consumer-choice" products in an actuarially balanced environment that preserves the sharing of insurance risk while still offering employees the chance to personalize their benefit choices to their own life stage and risk tolerance. Now offered to more than 225,000 employees and their family members nationwide, SmartSuite customers are enjoying average health cost trends in the mid-single digits, nearly half what is currently being experienced nationally. SmartSuite is the signature product advancing Humana's strategy of consumer engagement -- delivering innovative health benefit products that offer consumers choice, personalization, and peace of mind protection. The new release of SmartStart has been designed with a convenient user interface that will place underwriting power in the hands of the sales and broker team to provide more responsiveness to employer needs. Using data on employee demographics, plan pricing, and employer contributions, the tool will allow employers to model different benefit bundles and contribution strategies to achieve its health care and savings targets. "One of the beauties of this engine is how little fuel it needs to make its predictions," said Carol McCall, vice president and director of Humana's Center for Health Metrics. "With just a little bit of information on employees we can make remarkably good predictions about what kinds of benefits they will choose." SmartStart was developed in association with Icosystem Corporation, a world leader in complexity science research and agent-based modeling. Building upon an actuarial model developed by Humana, Icosystem developed algorithms to model consumer choices and built them into a program that is able to predict consumer behavior with stunning accuracy. Icosystem has applied its technology to diverse business problems, including improving R&D productivity in the pharmaceutical industry and optimizing business operations in the petrochemical industry. "Complexity-based approaches have tremendous practical applications in all sorts of business situations," said Eric Bonabeau, PhD, Icosystem's Chief Scientist and founder. "Whenever it is desirable to understand, predict and influence the behavior of complex systems, these methods can be enormously helpful." About Humana Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, is one of the nation's largest publicly traded health benefits companies, with approximately 7 million medical members located primarily in 19 states and Puerto Rico. Humana offers coordinated health insurance coverage and related services -- through traditional and Internet-based plans -- to employer groups, government-sponsored plans, and individuals. More information regarding Humana is available via the Internet at http://www.humana.com including: Annual report to stockholders; Securities and Exchange Commission filings; Most recent investor conference presentation; Quarterly earnings press releases; Audio archive of most recent earnings release conference call; Calendar of events (includes upcoming earnings conference call dates, times, and access number, as well as planned participation in investor conferences); Corporate Governance Information. About Icosystem Corporation Icosystem Corporation, a strategy consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has emerged as a leader in the development of business applications for network theory and complexity science. Using the tools of complexity science and advanced computational techniques, Icosystem provides a highly flexible and cost-effective technology platform for exploring business problems and discovering or designing strategies that have significant impact. Icosystem's approach uses realistic models of complex business environments and evolutionary and distributed computational techniques to validate new business ventures or improve the performance of existing enterprises. |
