Asparity Offers Health Plans Access to Consumer Behavior Data

Asparity Decision Solutions (Durham, N.C.), a provider of decision support and data solutions in healthcare and employee benefits, is making healthcare consumer behavior data about PlanSmartChoice.com available to health plans.

The company's Web portal, PlanSmartChoice.com is designed to help federal employees evaluate their healthcare options and coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The data will be made available to carriers via the company's online site administrator, a proprietary portal.

Asparity's consumer behavior data, which shows health plans how well their products and prices meet federal employees' personal needs and financial circumstances, is based on federal employees' experience with the PlanSmartChoice health plan selection tools during the 2009 open season. The information is gathered when federal employees are making their health plan purchases and leverages Asparity's conjoint analysis and advanced software applications. The company does not use or share any individual data or results.

Through the online site administrator, carriers can access attribute-importance profiles, which show the relative importance of product attributes during the selection process; cross tabs, which provide information on demographic frequency distribution of employees who use decision support; and medical plan scorecards, which show health plan performance in terms of enrollment behavior, plan rankings, adoption rates and estimated cost. The data also includes an annual report, which describes buying behavior based on federal employees' use of decision support during the open season.

Peggy Bresnick Kendler has been a writer for 30 years. She has worked as an editor, publicist and school district technology coordinator. During the past decade, Bresnick Kendler has worked for UBM TechWeb on special financialservices technology-centered ... View Full Bio