Great-West Life Selects Evolution Benefits' Payment Card Technology For Healthcare Spending Accounts

The Great-West Life Assurance Co. (Winnipeg, Manitoba) has selected Evolution Benefits (Avon, Conn.) to delivery card technology for its Visa payment card for healthcare spending accounts (HCSAs) in Canada.

Under the agreement, Great-West Life will use Evolution Benefits’ prepaid benefits card services to launch Health SolutionsPlus, which a vendor news release describes as an innovative group benefits solution for healthcare spending accounts, allowing group plan members direct access to HCSA available funds through a Visa payment card. Evolution Benefits will also provide substantiation technology to automatically verify the eligibility of the items purchased with the card, according to the vendor release.

“We are pleased to work with Evolution Benefits to offer this new service to our group plan sponsors and their plan members,” comments Dave Johnston, executive vice president of Great-West Life’s Group Insurance Division. “In addition to providing plan sponsors with new options for benefits plan design, plan members will also be empowered to choose how and where they spend their healthcare spending account funds, thereby offering significantly increased convenience and flexibility.”

The Health SolutionsPlus card, which will be made available in Canada for the first time through Great-West Life, will be loaded with a group plan member’s HCSA funds, allowing members to conveniently pay for covered health-related products and services from providers authorized by Great-West Life, according to Evolution Benefits. This will significantly reduce the need for plan members to pay upfront and submit paper or electronic claims for reimbursement, thereby decreasing out-of-pocket expenses, the vendor claims.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio