Managing Partners and Agencies

This chapter describes how to manage partners and agencies. It includes the following topics:

About Partners and Agencies

Siebel Healthcare allows you to manage partners and agencies.

Partners include service providers, aggregators, and insurance agencies.
Agencies are organizations that act on behalf of insurance companies to sell insurance policies. Agents and brokers are the licensed sales representatives who sell the insurance policies. For many insurance companies, agencies are often the most important type of partner.

Tracking partner information is important because for many healthcare companies, partners such as banks, agencies, and brokerages often function as a primary revenue channel.

Note: Adding partners on the Partners screen only allows you to track and monitor partner information. If you want to share data with a partner, the partner must be upgraded to a Siebel Organization. To perform this and other Partner administration tasks, you use the Administration -Partner screen. For more information, see Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide.

End users use the Agents screen for healthcare-related procedures such as:

Adding agents
Viewing agent information
Creating service requests or activities for agents
Tracking information about contracts, licenses, appointments, registration, errors and omissions, policies, and quotes

Note: Under the Party Model, where contacts include all persons, individuals added in the Agents business component are also members of the Contacts business component. Agents are a special subset of contacts who are engaged in the sales of Financial Services products.

Scenario for Working with Partners and Agencies (Users)

These scenarios feature sample tasks performed by a health plan company employees. Your company might follow a different workflow according to its business requirements.

In these scenarios, the end users are company employees who manage information in the field. They enter information to:

Create a partner
Add a contact that represents an agency
Add new agents
View information about existing agents
Track agent information about contracts, licenses, appointments, registration status, errors and omissions, policies, and quotes
Create service requests or activities for agents

Employee Adds a New Agency

In this scenario, an insurance company uses independent agencies as one of the channels for distribution of its insurance products. An employee for this insurance company needs to add a newly appointed agency to represent his company’s products to consumers.

His company has verified the qualifications of the agency, so he adds information about the agent. Then, he adds a new Partners record and adds information about the agency’s errors and omissions coverage.

Next, he navigates to the Licenses & Appointments view to record information about the agency’s license. Finally, he adds a contact with the agency.

Company Signs a New Agent

An healthcare company signs a new agent. A licensing and contracting coordinator for the company receives an interoffice mail containing the required paperwork. She enters the agent’s contact, license, appointment, and contract information into Siebel Healthcare.

Six months later, the agent moves to a new office. He forwards his new address and phone number to the sales representative who is his main contact at the healthcare company. The sales representative locates the agent inSiebel Healthcare and updates his address and phone number.

Process of Managing Partners and Agencies (Users)

This section details sample tasks often performed by end-users when managing partners and agencies. Your company might follow a different process according to its business requirements.

The following list shows tasks end users typically perform when managing partners and agencies:

Adding New Partners

End users can create new partner records and make changes to existing service provider information.

To create a partner

Navigate to Partners, then the Partner List view.
In the Partners form, add a record, and complete the necessary fields.
In the Partner Type field, select the appropriate type; if this partner is a service provider, select Service Provider.

Adding Agents

Agents are the licensed sales representatives who sell insurance policies. Adding an agent is the first step in managing procedures related to the agent.

To add an agent

Navigate to the Agents screen.
In the Agents list, add a record and complete the necessary fields.
1. In the Partner field, click the select button.
2. In the Partners dialog box, select a record and click OK, or click New to add a new partner.
3. If adding a new partner, complete the fields.
Note: To add or change the columns displayed in the list, click the list’s menu button and choose Columns Displayed.

Adding Information Associated with an Agent

Using the view tabs on the Agents screen, end users can track additional information related to agents including information about contracts, licenses and appointments, errors and omissions, National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) registration, and policies and quotes.

To add additional information about an agent

Navigate to the Agents screen.
In the Agents list, drill down on the desired agent and click the appropriate view tab from the following list:
- Contracts. To add information about the agent’s contracts.
- Licenses and Appointments. To add information about licenses the agent holds.
- Errors and Omissions. To add information about the agent’s errors and omissions.
- Registration. To add information about the agent’s registration status.
- Policies/Quotes. To view policies and quotes for the agent.
In the selected view list, add a record and complete the necessary fields.