Georgia Municipal Association Chooses Innovation Group’s Workers’ Comp Claims Solution

The Georgia Municipal Association (GMA, Atlanta), the administrator of the GMA Workers' Compensation Self-Insurance Fund (GMA WCSIF) has selected Innovation Group's Innovation WORKS workers' compensation claims management solutions. A joint effort to implement that Newton, Mass.-based vendor's product began in July.

GMA will use Innovation WORKS to manage claims for approximately 500 municipalities or municipal authorities in Georgia, according to an Innovation Group source. The Innovation Group technology will enable the self-insurance fund to better support members by streamlining operations, controlling medical and administrative costs, and strengthening business processes, according to the source.

"We conducted extensive due diligence looking for a new claims system," relates John Restivo, GMA's Director of IT. "We chose Innovation Group due to a combination of their experience in claims processing, the quality of the Innovation WORKS solution, and their willingness to work with us to provide the functionality we need to efficiently process claims. We have found their team to be very professional and organized with a corporate culture which includes very mature management processes."

The vendor describes Innovation WORKS as a feature rich, Web-based claims management and policy administration solution that addresses the needs of the workers' compensation industry with extendibility into additional commercial insurance product lines. The products core functionality is built around a point-and-click format and a platform that enables complete automation and management of the entire claims process, from first report of injury (FROI) through settlement, according to Innovation Group.

The vendor cites the following capabilities as helping organization such as GMA to more proactively and efficiently manage claims: a workflow and rules manager enables administrators to self-adjust navigation and embed best practices into core processes, reducing the time required to process claims; comprehensive financial management capabilities provide a quicker and more efficient benefit payment process, reducing the risk of unnecessary loss payouts; and flexible reporting for leveraging existing data enables the creation of a more powerful management and customer reports.

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