As previously announced in the May Producer eBlast, our Kaiser Permanente Washington Small Group team is now being led by Colin Blyth, senior manager. Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente Washington in 2021, Colin was a senior consultant with the National Small Group line-of-business team. He also managed the Small Group, Individual and Family, and Retail Sales teams for Kaiser Permanente of the Northwest.
As part of this transition, and to better streamline processes and support of our producers and groups, there are additional actions this team has taken in preparation for the fourth quarter — and January new business and renewals. We feel this alignment will better serve you and our members. It will also better position Kaiser Permanente Washington Small Group for the upcoming Q4 business cycle and allow for the region to align with best practices identified and currently in use with our partnering Kaiser Permanente markets.
Ready to sell and renew for 2023
- As part of an escalated ready-to-sell effort for 2023, Kaiser Permanente 2023 rates and collateral are now available via our quoting tool and producer portal, despite pending approval from the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner. These quotes and rates will be noted “pending approval” but will allow you to engage with your prospects earlier in the sales cycle for 2023. As soon as rates are approved, we will advise our producer partners of the approval.
- New Small Group Application for 2023: You will notice that the look and feel of our group application has changed. It has been streamlined to better meet market expectations and be easier for our groups and producers to use. It will also better align our Kaiser Permanente markets. Note: Though the required data largely remains the same, certain requirements have been removed, such as employment enrollment probationary periods. (These will still need to be maintained by the employer but will no longer be collected by Kaiser Permanente.) Ease-of-use features have been added to the PDF version of the application — which is now fully electronically fillable.
- Over the last few months, we have made a conscious effort to deliver renewals earlier and will continue this focus, targeting an 80- to 90-day release of renewals in 2023. As a result of these efforts, we’ll continue to leverage and expand our early renew procedure, targeting known and likely “renew-as-is” groups as early as 45 days before the effective date. As always, a group may continue to make changes up until the 10th of the month prior and beyond, depending on circumstance. Expect to see your December renewals in late September and January renewals delivered in early October.
New sales installation support
As part of our efforts to align to best practices and support being utilized in other Kaiser Permanente markets, we have begun to expand some of our new group installation processing to our dedicated Small Group operations team based in California. This team has supported new group installation in certain scenarios over the last 2 years, and given their success, the opportunity to support our producer new sales installation will allow for more timely support and strategic engagement from our sales executives and associate account managers. As a result, you’ll continue to submit groups through your sales executive and our shared inbox at smallbusinessgroup@kp.org but will see outreach on our behalf to confirm receipt and potential clarification requests from our operations team.
Staffing updates and ongoing training
Bridgette Blewett and Lance Wagner have recently moved to new roles within the organization.
As we update our account managers and support contacts for our Small Group books of business,
a transitional support team (smallbusinessgroup@kp.org) will assist in servicing the groups Bridgette and Lance previously managed. Please look for outreach communications from these new primary contacts.
In the upcoming months, we’ll continue to examine ways to make Kaiser Permanente Small Group easier to do business with, including additional training webinars, in-person engagement, and processing enhancements. We’re excited for these new changes, and look forward to your support and guidance as we begin the fourth quarter and move into 2023.