Converting and re-configuring a new core claim system can come with very high-risk factors. As you begin to put together an outline of how data will be moved from a legacy system to a new core system, a solid plan is important. Making sure the right company team members are involved will be the first step in setting up a successful data conversion plan. Make sure to include management team members from key departments including analysts, programmers, testers, claim supervisors, and managers from all departments that will be interacting with the new system. The data conversion plan provides the schematics needed to build a high-level workflow process for each integrated application.
What should conversion strategy look like?
Planning a conversion strategy should be detailed, organized, and have a clear roadmap. Your data conversion team can use a checklist to create a methodology on the best ways to perform the conversion and handle any problems that may come up.
A few basic items that should be on your conversion strategy checklist are:
- Software and Hardware requirements.
- What current interface or process is being used that must move over to the new system?
- What security parameters must be put in place?
- Conversion deadline date.
- Production targeted date.
- How will the end-user environment operate?
- The volume of data that will be converted.
- Data depository requirements.
Once a detailed project scope is put together a data map with detailed lists of elements, and sets that will be moved into the new claim management system is essential.
Several issues that can appear during this phase can be:
- Default settings
- Variations to data due to multiple programs being used in the legacy system
- Duplicate entries
- Corrupted Data
Benefits of data clean-up and translation process
Having a data clean-up and translation process will allow the data to easily convert into the new claim system format. Quality data gives insurers an advantage to perform historical analysis on trends and market changes. As data is moved a test plan should be integrated throughout the entire conversion strategy. It is best to have three levels of testing mapped out.
A unified understanding of how the conversion will be performed and the project scope, in general, will help with communication amongst all conversion team members. Project leaders will be able to use the data conversion plan to determine possible hiccups that may occur ahead of time and provide a roadmap for successful claim system implementation.
What other items would you include in your claims system data conversion strategy?
