FAQ

Health Advocate has been in business since January 2002.

Health Advocate offers a number of important benefits including providing expert assistance solving health and insurance-related problems and saving individuals both time and money. Most important, Health Advocate gives individuals a special advantage by having someone dedicated to helping them obtain the most from their healthcare experience.

• Saves time and money for the company and employees
• Eases burden on HR staff
• Increases employee productivity
• Demonstration of commitment to employees’ mental and physical well-being
• Provides a way to ease the challenges of work-life balance
• Improves employee satisfaction and morale
• Opportunity to improve health outcomes
• Focuses on the entire family

• Dedicated team of healthcare professionals to help them navigate the healthcare system
• Helps members find the best doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers
• Helps prepare members for doctor visits, informs about medical tests and treatment, and explains complex conditions
• Helps resolve insurance claims and correct billing mistakes
• Handles problems and addresses issues quickly and professionally
• Protects a member’s privacy and confidentiality
• Facilitates access to Centers of Medical Excellence
• Cuts through administrative red-tape

Health Advocate assists organizations and their employees/members through its staff of Personal Health Advocates (PHA).  Members requiring assistance call a special toll-free Health Advocate telephone number. The member speaks with a PHA, who is assigned to them personally, and explains their problem or need for assistance. After obtaining the necessary background information, the PHA, assisted by our staff of medical directors and administrative experts, researches and resolves the inquiry, allowing the member to get back to what they were doing.

The company serves as a liaison for members with healthcare providers, insurance plans and other health-related community resources.  Our comprehensive services help members with clinical and administrative issues involving medical, hospital, vision, dental, pharmacy and other healthcare needs. For example, we provide assistance finding primary care, specialist physicians and medical institutions and solve claims, billing and related administrative problems.  Health Advocate also helps members access community resources, including senior care services that fall outside traditional health insurance coverage.

Health Advocate differs from traditional health insurance programs in several significant ways. Health Advocate is not a replacement for health insurance coverage. Rather, our service is designed to help our members more easily navigate the healthcare and insurance systems. We do this by providing each member with their own Personal Health Advocate who serves as his or her own personal assistant. Our goal is to maximize and simplify a member’s healthcare experience.

Health Advocate saves money for clients and members in several important ways. First, we save our clients and members a good deal of time, which typically translates into large financial and productivity savings. Our staff of experts knows the "ins and outs" of the healthcare and insurance worlds. We get to the bottom of the problem quickly and provide solutions that save a good deal of money.

Second, we often find billing and claims errors providing additional savings. We also help negotiate provider charges, which is another source of savings.

Finally, we help get members in need of medical care to the right provider quickly, avoiding unnecessary shuffling between multiple providers and duplicate medical testing, etc. This is not only an area of considerable cost and productivity savings but also helps to enhance the quality of our members' healthcare experience.

Health Advocate serves a range of clients including employers, unions, governmental bodies, affinity groups, non-profit and charitable organizations, schools and universities, third-party administrators and insurers, including some of the nation’s largest companies as well as a wide range of local and regional organizations.

Health Advocate is located in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Yes. Health Advocate serves clients throughout the United States.

The additional premium cost to include Health Advocate as part of this special offering is really minimal. It will hardly be noticeable to your prospective customers. Furthermore, the extraordinary value of Health Advocate more than offsets the increase in premiums.

Yes. Qualified Distribution Partners are able to earn marketing fees for the sales of Health Advocate programs. Please contact our Sales Department at 1-866-385-8033 (toll-free) to find out how to become a participating distributor.

Health Advocate stands alone in terms of the scope and comprehensiveness of its services. There are some regional companies that offer limited elements of these services.

Yes. Health Advocate offers a broad spectrum of integrated wellness and HR solutions as an adjunct to our Core Health Advocacy program. Our staff has the experience and tools to provide a coordinated response across multiple issues.

Wellness Advocate

Our Wellness Advocate offers a broad spectrum of integrated solutions that leverages the important role of our core Personal Health Advocate. The solutions provide a personalized, action-oriented approach that helps employees make healthy lifestyle changes to reduce risk of costly disease and take an active role in their health. Happier, healthy employees have lower healthcare costs, fewer injuries and absences and are more productive.

HR Solutions

Benefits Integrator:

Our Benefits Integrator is a stand-alone set of solutions designed to streamline and better coordinate access to an organization’s various benefits programs. This solution allows employers to choose from a variety of options including our Call Director service, which serves as a convenient, single point of entry to address all employee questions about benefit programs and resources. 

Enrollment Advocate: 

Enrollment Advocate is designed to help answer employees’ questions about health plan options and features during an organization’s annual open enrollment period. This assures that enrollment runs smoothly and effortlessly.

FMLA Assistance:

FMLA Assistance protects employers from invalid claims, provides necessary medical information and helps companies comply with government privacy regulations.

Independent Appeals Administration:

Independent Appeals Administration is designed to fully support plan sponsors who have responsibility for overseeing their self-funded health plans with a highly trained team of experts offering comprehensive, objective assistance with appeals decisions. As an independent organization, we make certain that organizations obtain the advice and support they need while assuring strict compliance with ERISA and other regulations.