Amino Health, the leading digital healthcare guidance platform, today announced the launch of Smart Match Pro, a new product capability that gives employers the unprecedented ability to optimize search results for their existing carrier networks for cost and quality, without needing to invest in supplemental networks or consultants.
Employers face ballooning healthcare expenses
Employer contributions to worker premiums have ballooned in the last ten years. In 2023, employers paid over $17K per employee for family insurance coverage, a 46% increase from 2013, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Individual employee contributions increased at a similar rate.
Confronted with these unstainable costs, employers seek cost-containment programs that balance the need for access to high quality healthcare, with predictable costs. Network design has emerged as one the solutions to control costs. Today, large and sophisticated employers can hire third party administrators or consultants to design a plan which will add or exclude providers based on performance metrics. These programs are particularly popular for high cost procedures and treatments associated with surgery or cancer. However, setting up these programs can be costly and time-consuming. And once these programs are set up, the next challenge becomes member awareness and utilization.
Introducing Smart Match Pro from Amino Health
Smart Match Pro software enables employers to create their own Virtual Narrow Network
Amino created Smart Match Pro to empower employers to customize their provider network using proprietary software and data. Smart Match Pro leverages Amino’s patented cost and quality algorithms to identify high performing providers within the employer’s existing network. Employers will have unprecedented flexibility to optimize networks to meet their specific program goals, paired with Amino’s award-winning virtual platform to drive both engagement and utilization.
One Amino client used Smart Match Pro to prioritize cost-containment for planned surgeries by guiding members to providers and facilities in the Top 3% of their existing network. This same client prioritized a broad provider network for Primary Care and Obstetrics, where costs are less varied, instead prioritizing access and employee proximity to the providers.
Smart Match Pro works seamlessly with Amino’s existing, consumer-grade interface. Members can simply search for their care needs, and Amino’s algorithm will prioritize results according to each employer’s unique goals. Amino’s interface has already proven to drive industry-leading utilization of preferred providers and point solutions, which means Amino can advance both employers' network design and utilization objectives.
Smart Match Pro saves thousands of dollars per employee
Amino has partnered with employers for over a decade to guide their plan members to the best care for a given condition. Powered by 28 billion medical claims, Amino’s core Smart Match technology identifies the highest-quality, most cost-effective providers for a given need within a given network. With the release of Smart Match Pro, employers can now further refine Smart Match results to achieve their cost-saving and access goals.
By allowing employers to configure their existing carrier networks to suit the needs of their workforce, Smart Match Pro can save employers thousands of dollars per employee per year. For example, Amino data shows that the top five percent most affordable knee surgeries are $5,500 less expensive than the average provider. By creating narrow networks for knee surgeries, employers can save thousands of dollars each year on this one procedure alone.
Smart Match Pro reflects a significant milestone in Amino’s mission to make healthcare more accessible, affordable, and effective for employers and their members alike.
Request a demo here.
About Amino Health
Amino Health is the digital healthcare guidance platform that empowers people to find the best care. Combining an employer’s unique benefits offerings with a proprietary database of more than 28 billion claims and hundreds of care-quality measures, Amino connects people to top in-network providers, ultimately driving cost savings, improved engagement with point solutions, and better health outcomes.