IBI's single-source benchmarking database released

Largest single-source database identifies competitive advantage for employers from effective health, disability and productivity management

To help employers gauge benefits-program results, the not-for-profit Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) released today the country's largest single-source benchmarking database across industry groups and occupational and non-occupational benefits programs. The 2008 IBI Benchmarking database compares how employers' lost-time programs perform against others in their industry.

IBI employer members receive benchmarks for their industry for workers' compensation, short-term disability, long-term disability and family and medical leave programs. IBI benchmarking also compares results by plan design for short- and long-term disability. "Sometimes plan design differences can mean more than the industry group an employer is in," said Pamela Hymel, MD, senior director - Integrated Health, corporate medical director, Cisco Systems. "At Cisco we've been able to use IBI benchmarking for plan design comparisons for two years."

These reports are available at no cost to IBI employer members. Complimentary, one-year employer IBI memberships are available by contacting [email protected].

The Institute provides on-line access to benchmarks based on 27,000 employer benefits programs with almost 3 million claims. Reports are available for more than 600 benefits-program industry groups. New features this year allow comparisons based on the interests of the user - benchmarks for the typical employer in the industry group as well as newly providing benchmarks across all the claims in the industry group, a metric valued by suppliers.

"Employers want to know what results are typical for other employers in their industry," said Thomas Parry, PhD, president of IBI. "Those managing claims for clients, however, often want comparisons calculated as metrics across all claims within an industry group. Thus, comparisons that only look, for example, at how the average experience of a 100-employee program compares to a 150,000-employee program may miss the mark for suppliers. IBI's benchmarking program provides both views."

In addition to expanding IBI benchmarking reports to reflect the comparisons important to suppliers as well as to employers, this year IBI's industry reports also identify the medical conditions that drive incidence and costs for short- and long-term disability programs by major diagnostic group. Unless employers understand what conditions are driving lost time, it is difficult to manage improvement.

"Employers look to us for sources of credible, industry-specific benchmark data in order to make informed decisions impacting these important employee benefit programs," said Mary Tavarozzi, principal, Towers Perrin. "IBI's benchmarking database provides us with the comprehensive, standardized data sets we need to compare employers' programs across a wide range of data points and to evaluate the programs' effectiveness and results."