Episode 048: Get Better with Vantage

Speaker 1: You're listening to Your Practice Made Perfect, support, protection, and advice for practicing medical professionals, brought to you by SVMIC.

Brian: Hello, welcome to this week's podcast. My name is Brian Fortenberry, and we have an incredible guest with us today, Judy Musgrove. Judy, thanks for joining us.

Judy: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian: We're going to get into the heart of what we're going to be discussing in just a moment, but before we do that, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your background and things of that nature, how long you've been here at SVMIC.

Judy: Sure. Well, my current role here at SVMIC is the Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Communications. I've been here for just on four years. Prior to that, I have worked in telecom and building products, as various marketing roles in those two industries, and I actually spent about six years in Medical Service Corps in the Army, developing plans and operations for army units, both here domestically, and deployed overseas.

Brian: Let's start with what service platforms does SVMIC offer their policyholders? 'Cause there's a variety of them.

Judy: Sure. Well, like you would expect, most of our policyholders like to interact with SVMIC via the phone. We have a pretty amazing group of Customer Service Representatives here in Brentwood, who believe it or not, actually answer every single phone call. You will never get a voicemail when you call SVMIC, you'll always get an actual human being, located here, not in India or Japan, or South America or anywhere else. They're actually live people right here.

We also offer services, a smaller set of services, but we do offer services via the web as well, and policyholders can also email us.

Brian: And we have incredible employees here that are very well educated in helping policyholders with any questions they have. What's SVMIC offered to policyholders in terms of technology resources up until present day?

Judy: Sure. Up 'til now, we've offered secure access to pay your bill via eCheck online, and we also offer an extensive array of online education. Some other services like access to obtain your certificate of insurance are available online, as well as like I said earlier, contacting us via email, things like that.

Brian: You've done some incredible work on the website, as well, and that has jumped light years over where it was just a few years ago.

Judy: We have a lot of resources for our policyholders, practice managers, on our website. Most of them are secure, so you need a login and password to be able to access them. Keeps them protected so that people who aren't policyholders don't have access to our proprietary resources.

Brian: Absolutely. This Vantage platform that we're going to talk about here, what is it that SVMIC is announcing now about Vantage?

Judy: We're really excited about Vantage. It's a brand new policyholder resource platform, so Vantage is the way that all of our policyholders will access SVMIC's online presence from now on. When you come to visit SVMIC via the web as a policyholder, Vantage is the way that you will do it. It's a brand new interface, and it's in response really to feedback that we've had from our policyholders over the last four years, telling us very clearly that they expect more from us online. They expect better services, better ways to interface with us online.

But one thing it's not is replacing the outstanding telephone service, and the outstanding personal service that we provide today. One way to think of it is bringing our online service up to the same level that our personal service is. It's definitely not a replacement.

Brian: That's fantastic, because as we said earlier, we have representatives in many of the departments within this company that do an incredible job of answering those questions, but as we've seen through surveys and other means, people are changing the way they get information at times, at least some of the population is, and I guess this is really a way to make sure that there's something for everyone out there, correct?

Judy: Exactly, and not all physicians work during the day, either. We are an 8:00 to 5:00 office here in Central Time, so it's important that we're able to provide service or allow people to obtain what they need during times other than the times that our office is open to answer a phone call as well. That's another important part of having a robust online service platform.

Brian: What can a policyholder expect to be able to do on Vantage, whether it is an off-hour time or within a normal business day? What can they expect to be able to do and how would they go about doing that?

Judy: Sure, so in order to access Vantage, a policyholder or a practice manager will need a login and a password. The login is simply an email address, and then the password is obviously a secure password. Anybody who already logs into our current website, it will port over to Vantage, so there's no need to do anything different. Any policyholder who doesn't already have a login or password will simply need to go to the website and click, "Don't have an account" and work through the process there. It's very simple to obtain one.

What you can do once you get into Vantage is pretty amazing. You can look at your policy, you can pay your policy, you can view your balances, you can look at your entire dividend history, you can also look at all your education credits. So, SVMIC offers a 10% premium credit when you attend an SVMIC education seminar during the year. You can see those credits, whether you have credits built up to apply to the future, or whether you need to attend a seminar this year.

You can look at your MVP, so our loyalty program, can see your balance, you can see your transactions, when your deposits have been made into that account. You can even see when you will be fully vested, and when you'll be able to take your money out if you meet one of the qualifying conditions.

If you're a practice manager, you'll be able to look at that for your entire practice, for every physician in your practice, exactly what their balances are, when they'll be eligible for payout, et cetera. You can look at your certificate of insurance, you can email it to yourself, you can send it to a previously established third party, you can include a claims history with that, you can authorize the claims history, the form is right there online, to take care of that.

And then you can also use it as a portal to get into your education site, take courses, manage your certificates for your courses, your credits, all those things, and to launch into our extensive resources. As I said earlier, it's truly the portal into everything that SVMIC offers online for our policyholders.

Brian: And it is a vast amount of stuff out there, not only having to do really with medical professional liability insurance, but there's a lot of articles out there and information out there having to do with guidelines for nurse practitioners or physician assistants or CRNAs, all the way from that to opioid information. I mean, there really is a vast amount of information that can be gained from there. So now this is for both physicians and practice managers? Did I understand that correctly?

Judy: Yeah, that's actually a good question, Brian, because we do serve two different audiences via our website. At least two different audiences. Vantage is specifically designed with different roles in mind. When you sign up for Vantage or sign up for your username and password, you'll designate what your role is, and then Vantage will give you a special set of access depending on what that role is. Someone who is a credentialing expert will have a different set of access than a physician, for example. The tools and widgets that you're given within Vantage vary based upon what that role is.

Brian: Okay, so you'll be looking at some of the same things, but some of it will be different depending on your level?

Judy: Exactly.

Brian: Okay. Understand that. A big concern in today's healthcare world is security, and security of information, and cybersecurity is a big deal, certainly in healthcare over the last few years. It has unfortunately sprung to the top of the list. With that out there, is Vantage a secure portal?

Judy: SVMIC is very concerned about security and I think it will continue to be a bigger and bigger issue as we move forward, as more and more of our interactions are done online, not just with SVMIC, but with business in general. We are confident in the security of Vantage. That said, I don't think anything is bulletproof today. We will continue to be vigilant in maintaining the security and increasing the vigilance around the security.

We have our network tested constantly by a third party. Legitimate hackers I guess you would call them, who constantly are trying to get into our network, and give us feedback based on those efforts and places that we need to sure up our own security. So we're doing that all the time and responding to that constantly.

But we are very concerned about security, we're very confident in it today, and we're doing our best to maintain that.

Brian: It is something certainly that this company and the administration and management of this company does take incredibly seriously. It is, I can only imagine, as safe as anything could be in the time and in the era that we live in. We talked about a little bit how does a policyholder or a practice manager sign up for Vantage. Is that a fairly quick process? I mean, they ask just a few questions, and they get access that way?

Judy: Sure. In order to sign up for an account, you need to know if you're a physician, exactly how your name appears on your policy. So, if your name is Richard B. Smith, and you signed up for your policy as Richard Smith, then you're not going to be able to sign up if you try to use that B middle initial for example.

Brian: Got you.

Judy: So you need to know exactly how you're signed up on the policy, and you need your account number. With those two things, you can very simply walkthrough the process. If you have any questions or concerns, you can always pick up the phone and call us, and one of our underwriting specialists will walk you right through and get it taken care of for you. So it's super easy.

Brian: Yeah, they have that information they should be able to help you out with. It is simple and even if you do prefer as you said earlier, the incredible experience with an actual individual, this is always a good thing to have in case you need it, in case you need to access information at an off-hour, or a holiday, even if it's not your primary mode. There's no reason really to not sign up for it.

Judy: Exactly. It's great to have the account, it's great to have access to those resources, say you need a particular form. We have tons of forms out there in our resource section, things like that. There's no harm in having it.

Brian: Not at all. I'm curious about the name, Vantage. Does it have any special meaning? Where did that come from?

Judy: Vantage does have a special meaning. So, what we're providing to our policyholders in Vantage is one place where they can go to see all the benefits of being an owner of SVMIC. If you think about Vantage as a vantage point or a place where you can stand and look and see things all around you, Vantage is a place where you can see all the things around you that add up to being an SVMIC owner.

You can see the education advantages, you can see the resource advantages, you can see the loyalty program, you can see the elements of your policy itself, you can see your education credits, you can see the logistics, admin things like certificates of insurance. That's how we derive the name Vantage.

Brian: That's fantastic. Because it does give you that mind picture of being able to stand on that point on the mountain and be able to see everything around you, and understand the wholeness or the fullness of everything, and it drives home to me the point that SVMIC is so much more than just medical professional liability policy. Even though that is maybe the primary thing that is done here, and it affords that protection, there are many other parts to one's policy, and advantages or a vantage that you can see that from.

As we get ready to wrap up here, Judy, what would be some final parting suggestions or things that you would like for the listeners of our podcast to understand about Vantage?

Judy: I think the biggest thing is that it's going to provide a very simple online experience for our policyholders. That the interface is extremely simple, it's colorful, it's fun to use, it has widgets which are fun, little elements that you can move around. I think our policyholders will really enjoy using it. Our intention is to have a second phase coming out here later in 2019, which will add new features, and we intend to continue doing that, so we'll be anxious to hear feedback from our policyholders, so as you use it, please don't hesitate to let us know. You can always reach us by emailing contactsvmic@svmic.com, and we're always open for feedback. We look forward to hearing what you think of it as you get to use it.

Brian: And the opportunity to be able to invest in maybe a change that would be a benefit to a policyholder, whether it be a physician, a practice manager, that is always an incredible thing, and certainly if they have any issues or questions on how to use it-

Judy: Call.

Brian: ... they certainly can contact as well.

Judy: Definitely don't wait. If you've got a concern or a problem, for sure, get in touch with us right away.

Brian: Judy, it has been a pleasure having you here. Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us today the advantage of having Vantage.

Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of Your Practice Made Perfect with your host Brian Fortenberry. Listen to more episodes, subscribe to the podcast, and find show notes at SVMIC.com/podcast. The contents of this podcast are intended for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Policyholders are urged to consult with their personal attorney for legal advice, as specific legal requirements may vary from state to state and change over time.