LDEx Q&A with Selerix VP of Product Development, Ruthie Gray: Part 2

LDEx stands for LIMRA data exchange standards. So LIMRA is a committee of insurance carriers and benefit partners. This is a standards committee with a standard based way to exchange data. That’s all that’s about. So making sure that everyone is exchanging data in the same way and that data can be related to benefits enrollment, EOI decision data and eventually plan administration.

This is a two-way data exchange. This isn’t just how technology partners will submit data to the carriers, but it’s also a way carriers can give the same type of data back to technology partners to make sure everyone is in sync.

The first standard that came up was around the benefit enrollment standard. So that was for exchange of coverage elections, changes, terminations, as well as non-coverage like demographic types of changes. That was all included in the benefit enrollment.

The next one finalizes the evidence of insurability decision format and what that’s going to have is information about those decisions. 

And then the third one is really going to be details about benefit plans set up. So everything like I said from quoting to sold case administration which will aid in configuration of the technology partners. 

By the time the official standards for benefits enrollment, which is the only standard that’s been officially released at this point, by the time that one was rolled out in January 2020, not only did we have the file already in place ready to be able to send the file or receive data in that file, but we but we had also set up a successful API connection testing with one of our partners to make sure that we could send and receive in the API format. So at the time it was officially rolled out, we were up and ready to go.

At this point actually Lyle’s a member of the executive committee and the governance team. He’s really helping provide thought leadership and it also really helps the we’re getting the information before it’s even really released in a lot of situations and so we’re prepared. We’re ready to roll this out, really ahead of the curve.

But not only that, Lyle has been a tireless advocate for this as well. So even when he’s not on the standards committee meetings, or on the government’s committee meetings, or working as a part of a tiger team to brainstorm some new topics. He is talking and living and breathing LDEx for the last 3.5 years. At this point, they’ve made it to where that this is really an integral part of Selerix’s DNA.

The goal here is that all technology partners and all carriers work with the same format. So it allows them to quickly move from one technology partner to another or spread out based on what’s best for their business.

An employee should know, as soon as they enroll on whatever technology platform they enroll in, that data is going to get to the carrier, there’s not a delay in the data getting over. There’s not a delay in processing of the data. It’s real time.

The thing the partners need to remember and and that they’re really seeing it’s the same format, either way. It’s just a matter of the file, you’ll have 1,000 records and in the API you’ll have one, and and there’s everything in between there that it could be also. But it’s really a matter of the mass and timeliness of the data.

So carriers that are worried and saying, oh well we’re really gonna push API off, need to understand that the lift for the API is just making sure we can connect to each other. Just making sure we can connect to each other because they can consume and create the LDEx standard, they’re ready to consume and created in either a file or an API format. It’s the same format, either way. It’s just a matter of how we connect to each other. Are we delivering the files to an SFTP site or we actually hitting a API endpoints on each other’s side. The same day that we’re all speaking the same language.

In the employer’s world, data should just go and they don’t want to worry about it. They don’t want to worry about when is this file scheduled to go. Is it in the right format? Can the carrier handle this data, can the technology partner handle the data? They just want to know that my employee enrolled and now they need that to be at the carrier. And with LDEx that happens.

The goal here is that all technology partners and all carriers work with the same format. So it allows them to quickly move from one technology partner to another or spread out based on what’s best for their business.

An employee should know, as soon as they enroll on whatever technology platform they enroll in, that data is going to get to the carrier, there’s not a delay in the data getting over. There’s not a delay in processing of the data. It’s real time.

The thing the partners need to remember and and that they’re really seeing it’s the same format, either way. It’s just a matter of the file, you’ll have 1,000 records and in the API you’ll have one, and and there’s everything in between there that it could be also. But it’s really a matter of the mass and timeliness of the data.

So carriers that are worried and saying, oh well we’re really gonna push API off, need to understand that the lift for the API is just making sure we can connect to each other. Just making sure we can connect to each other because they can consume and create the LDEx standard, they’re ready to consume and created in either a file or an API format. It’s the same format, either way. It’s just a matter of how we connect to each other. Are we delivering the files to an SFTP site or we actually hitting a API endpoints on each other’s side. The same day that we’re all speaking the same language.