Cloud services alleviate IT burden and risk for claims management enterprise

Overcoming staffing issues

Trust Services Inc. (TSI), is a claims processing facility in Greenville, Texas, that manages the distribution of bankruptcy trusts’ funds to claimants who suffered bodily injury from asbestos and silica exposure.

As a small company, TSI could afford to have only one person serve as a network and server administrator, as well as an infrastructure support technician. Typically, the company would make a significant investment to get that person oriented to its IT environment and maintain that person’s training — only to see the person soon move on to another opportunity. Other IT team members knew a little bit about the technology, but it was very evident when the network administrator went on vacation (or left the company).

In May 2010, the corporate file server crashed. While the company knew it could restore the server, the process took 10 days. A massive amount of utilized disk space required restoration, and the responsibility for completing the work fell to one person. Claims processing, which relies on the ability to retrieve letters, documents and claims from the main server, was delayed for 2 weeks. That failure changed the way the company looked at IT, and in December, it began its search for a new answer.

Randy Cantrell, TSI’s chief executive officer, says cost was another factor in its decision to look at cloud solutions. “I learned that DXC Technology and more specifically, its DXC Concerto Cloud solutions, could host our solutions for basically the same price [as] having everything in-house, while reducing the risk of system failures, downtime, etc.,” he says. “With the same IT budget, I wouldn’t have to worry about recruiting IT talent, maintaining an expensive training budget, backfilling support during IT staff vacations, and worse case, worrying about turnover, which I think would be a huge relief for any small company.”

Cantrell says he also wanted to get out of the business of evaluating and buying servers. “I wouldn’t have the headache of figuring out which server to buy, what the specs are, how to transfer information, how to keep them running, upgrades, maintenance, etc. I realized it would take a huge burden off me.”

A hosted answer

DXC Concerto Cloud helped ease the company’s concerns about being at the forefront of what, at the time, was a new technology. DXC’s solution was connected to TSI’s enterprise document management solution, Laserfiche®, and into its Microsoft Dynamics and claims management solution. This solution retrieves associated claim documents to be viewed side-by-side against claims system information using a secure document repository with a robust set of markup and commenting tools. It is a processing-intensive product, and TSI felt there might be performance issues.

Cantrell says thanks to the preplanning efforts performed by the DXC migration team, the switchover to cloud went smoothly. “It was pretty much lights-out for TSI,” he says. “It occurred after hours, and the next day we were up and running.”

TSI’s custom claims processing system includes an interactive web application that allows registered customers who represent its claimants to file claims and upload supporting documents. Claimant representatives can track where their claim is during the facility review process using standard data field filters or via specialized queries, can edit key information and determine whether they need to upload additional documentation, and as Cantrell notes, “It is fast and super-stable now.”

Solid returns

For TSI, DXC Concerto cloud solution gives the company freedom, eliminating the need to be tied to physical servers in a single location. And it creates more versatility for the company’s employees. “We could all work from home someday and not lose a step. Our business is now extensible,” Cantrell says.

“We also have the bench strength of DXC expertise. It’s the equivalent of having two full-time employees trained in 13 to 14 complex IT disciplines, but I don’t have to worry about the overhead.” “In the past, I was the CEO at midnight with bloodshot eyes looking at a server with two IT guys scratching their heads. I asked them when it would be fixed and they said, ‘We don’t know.’ That’s the worst place to be in. Now, my awareness of a problem is normally after the fact — an email notification informs me after something has happened and it has already been addressed,” he says.

Cantrell’s message to companies considering a similar move is short and simple. “My advice would be: You can’t do it soon enough.”