Ease

After trying many systems... Ease Central comes out on top

Kommentare: The main benefit our agency has received from this product is the ability to streamline the enrollment experience for our clients. On of our top goals, as it relates to interacting with our clients and prospects, is to teach. We want people to deepen their understanding of healthcare, and their benefits options. Ease Central has helped us further our mission.

Vorteile:

Our agency has committed to using Ease Central as our default system. Though we use others from time to time, Ease Central continues to be the most user friendly choice we're aware of - For employees, company admin, and brokers like us. The reality is - Benefits administration can be complex... Having said that, Ease makes it as simple as our agency has seen.

Nachteile:

There are a few small features that we've requested, and that the Ease Central team is working on. Our first BIG feature request has been implemented - COBRA automation through our preferred COBRA vendor... Outside of that, we'd love to see the system auto-generate term forms for employees who are no longer with the employer or eligible for benefits.

Pro's and Cons

Kommentare: Building benefits into EASE is not easy. I have helped other agencies get started with the product. 1 agency had it for a year and their Admin person had watched Video after training video but had yet to get 1 group finished on the system where they could actually use it.
We spent 2 days training them IN PERSON and getting them up and running.
Recently, Ive been helping another agent - again NEW to the system. They seriously messed up deductions on about 4 cases, as well as employee applications as you have to be careful naming plans and checking that if an employee selects each plan the apps are marked correctly. In this case- Met life dental apps were not being marked when employees selected dental, due to the Plan name being wrong in the set up. Another problem was due to setting up employees with JOB CLASSES - But not offering the each plan to ALL CLASSES ... I explained to this agent Employee Class better Match the Benefit set up OTHERWISE - NEVER USE JOB CLASSES UNLESS IT"S ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. For new users - building groups into EASE can lead to a myriad of issues. This goes away once you become proficient - but the learning curve can be devastating to agencies as we can lose cases over errors.

Vorteile:

EASE - Has User friendly screens and Reports. It is easier for employees to use and navigate benefits. We also like the EASE phone app

Nachteile:

We hate the Legacy mapping fees - particularly on the supplemental insurances such as vision and life as these fees practically take away our commissions on those plans. We spend time selling those as added value benefits , it's time consuming with very small commissions, so it's a RUB when EASE takes the equivalent of those commissions monthly for the Legacy mapping fees . These NEW additional fees can increase the software monthly charge by 30%

User Since It Came Out

Kommentare: It's been... Okay. Support and billing really need to learn that they aren't the most important people in the world and should have a way better attitude.

Vorteile:

Nice graphics, Clean Design. Easy on the employee side

Nachteile:

COMPLICATED, lacking features, PRICING.

The name say's it all

Kommentare: When we selected EASE we were looking for a platform that would be simple to implement and would reduce administrative work time for our account management staff. We have found EASE can accomplish those tasks well. While we did need to designate time for implementation and training for our staff as well as our clients, we found that time spent on ongoing service work reduced.

Vorteile:

The Ease of implementation and carrier connections.

Nachteile:

The lack of options in the H.S.A. contribution build and the cap on broker users.

Group benefits usage

Kommentare: Overall experience with ease has been good. The best features I personally like is the rate quoting tool, tracking of employees, and the enrollments.

Vorteile:

I liked the ease of learning and using the system.

Nachteile:

I feel sometimes support wasn't as helpful and getting our Agency subscription/billing fixed was a hassle.

Ease is an excellent Benefit Admin system to use for all of our clients

Kommentare: I have used Ease almost every workday for almost 3 years and love that they are continually improving the system to be more user friendly for brokers, employers and employees.

Vorteile:

The simple and quick setup process to add a new benefit offering or even a new client.

Nachteile:

The customer service is a bit stretched for knowledge and availability The carrier connections are not as extensive as some other Ben admin systems

Ease is simple, but doesn't have all the bells and whistles.

Kommentare: I use Ease as a broker partner and as an employee of a group - I have experienced the system for set up through enrollment on the admin side as well as on the employee side.

Vorteile:

Simplicity of enrollment, for members (new hires and renewals). Document storage for past enrollment and changes. Quick set up, and easy to change rates and benefits if needed.

Nachteile:

ACA reporting - this can be challenging and sometimes they are not able to fix mistakes that occur (such as newborn dependents don't show up until the month after their birth). EDI capabilities with Core medical carriers (they are adding new carriers everyday for what they call Ease Connections, but no medical carriers yet). Ability to class out products - you have to make a new plan for a different class, you can't use the same and just have class distinctions.

Ease for small agency

Kommentare: Ease has been great. Once you have your data input, managing groups is easy. They even have the ability to connect to the carriers so that when a change is made in ease, it automatically updates the carrier with the change.

Vorteile:

Ease is an intuitive product with features that are easy to learn and use.

Nachteile:

It almost feels like you need to hijack the system a little bit to use it for underwriting a new group. The verbiage and instructions are geared toward a typical open enrollment and it can confuse employees who are completing applications for underwriting purposes.

Easy to use

Kommentare: This has simplified my clients and their employees to enroll onto the Benefit Packages that I sell. It has made it easy for my staff to enroll and terminate employees as well.

Vorteile:

It takes only an hour or so to set up a company onto Ease. We then review it with the client before we release it to the Employees.

Nachteile:

Sometime the functionality of the product it specific to Large Group and has to be adjusted for Small Group

Makes Open Enrollment Easy!

Kommentare: I love EaseCentral. There is a learning curve, but support is extremely helpful. They can even log into the client you are working with and help you with specifics.

Vorteile:

I love that the employees can log in and review their benefits and make their elections themselves, leaving me time for other things.

Nachteile:

There is a lot of setup to do, but as I learn to use it I am finding the shortcuts.

Buyer BEWARE!

Kommentare: It was hands down my wort customer experience in decades. I'm not kidding! It is hard to believe that it was this bad, but it was.

Vorteile:

I liked the software functionality that the online demo showed and the sales person promised I would receive.

Nachteile:

At the end of the day EASE simply never delivered a usable platform. I ended up with zero functionality and at each step EASE employees would blame someone else - Sales -Implementation - Development, etc.

Bill Warren's Ease Review

Vorteile:

The most value I find with the software is that information I need for my clients is readily available. Information on specific employees or the descriptions of a client's benefits are just a click away. Enrolling new groups and open enrollment are much easier since employees receive the enrollment material electronically which includes their benefits and payroll deductions so they can make informed decision. The employer and I can track progress and receive information on a more timely basis and the enrollment material we receive is legible. I can easily download employee enrollment information to the insurance company's enrollment format which save time and is completely accurate. Enrolling new employees during the plan year is much easier for the employer, employee and broker.

Nachteile:

The main issue that I find with the software is that it does not connect with my insurance companies. Currently only 1 of my insurance companies is connected with Ease. Due to the non-connectivity, I have to manually input changes in enrollment. When my customers add to delete employees on their insurance plan, I have to manually make the change on the insurance company's web site. It really simplifies the process for the 1 insurance company that's connected to Ease.

Account Manager

Kommentare: Several years ago, we used Ease to manage the benefits of a large employer with multiple benefits and multiple eligibility rules. The group was managing their benefits manually and via spreadsheets. The group was able to implement everything in Ease. An Ease representative made himself available over a holiday to help us import data and implement this group.

Vorteile:

Ease provides a great platform for onboarding and benefit enrollment. From the setup side, Ease is one place to store all benefit plan information, eligibility rates, employee demographics. I use Ease as my go-to place when I need to reference enrollment or benefit questions.

Nachteile:

I do not have anything specific I can say I do not like about Ease. There are continual enhancements being made and sometimes I do not know about the functionality until I am processing a change or a renewal.

Ease Review

Kommentare: It has been ok. Support is getting better but I oftentimes figure things out on my own.

Vorteile:

I like the simplicity on the employee's end.

Nachteile:

The back-end setup can be complicated and time-consuming. There are always issues that are unpredictable. Even when running tests there are scenarios that come up that end up in errors. Training is poor on the product. It has been a learn-as-you-go experience.

One piece of constructive criticism

Kommentare: Overall, have been very, very pleased, and our employers have been overwhelmingly happy. Even those we more or less forced into moving to the platform have come back and said how much they like it. It's made our admin lives much easier.

Vorteile:

The efficiency and accuracy - save us (or our employers) a lot of time that we were previously wasting, having to follow up on paper forms to get missing information, figure out what something said that we couldn't read, etc.

Nachteile:

There have been a couple of things that are inaccurate or incomplete. For instance, the program seems to automatically default to saying the Rx coverage is NOT creditable...but most of them are. There has also been at least one case where the detail of the BCBS lab and x-ray benefit was not exactly accurate. We can "fix" these, but we DEPEND on the program to do most of this for us.

Satisfied broker and client

Kommentare: Ease has been a great provider for our Agency's clients. It's powerful, yet simple to deploy and get clients up to speed whether that be HR/admin or employee level.

Vorteile:

Ease is a great system, learning and adapting with input from brokers and end users. It's got a great look and feel to it and the ever growing 3rd party connections and integrations are awesome.

Nachteile:

I have to get nit picky to really get to a con but here you go, when you are typing in a pop up box and hi-lite something to change or delete it or whatever and you drag too far, the pop up box disappears and you have to start over. Rather annoying if you've typed a name, address, DOB, SS# and so forth and lose it.

Great product!

Kommentare: Overall, I really like Ease and feel comfortable with the platform. Despite limitations with connections to other softwares, I am able to get my work done through Ease quickly and efficiently.

Vorteile:

Ease is extremely user friendly and easy to use. I personally have had very few, if any, issues with the platform. Additionally, my employees are able to use it without an issue when making their benefits enrollment selections. Additionally, the reports are extremely helpful for pulling censuses and deductions amounts.

Nachteile:

One issue I experience with Ease currently is that my carriers do not have EDI connections to the platform, and it does not link to Paylocity, our HRIS. Therefore, most of the administration is done manually.

Ease Central has been a tremendous resource, housing employee and benefit information.

Kommentare: I'm not sure the full scope of benefits purchased. We use it for employee data, employee benefits, elections, employer contributions, , paycheck deductions, hiring and terminations dates, wages, pay period, 5500 forms.

Vorteile:

It is a one stop for activities with most of our employer groups. It is simple to use, easy to track tasks, and easy for employers and employees to use too. It is so nice to have eSignatures and to be able to download the apps with signatures when needed. It is a quick resource when info is needed on employees. I don't have to hunt through enrollment forms or wonder if it is accurate. It is accurate, current employee information for immediate needs. The employee cost is a great resource for employees and the website is an ongoing resource to come back to when needing documents, search tools, or when there is a qualifying event. It is awesome!

Nachteile:

I don't have any cons about the software. Any unknown that I have come across has been quickly answered.

Efficient Enrollments

Kommentare: Enrollments are so much smoother, whether for a new hire, a renewing group or for a new group. It saves so much time not having to go over handwritten paper apps any more. More complete data is also available at my fingertips, easy to find and access. No more having to dig through the files to find a rate sheet, or manually calculate a family level premium.

Vorteile:

I love how smooth the enrollment process is for the employee, the group admin, the brokerage, and the carrier. No more having to go back and forth with missing data, illegible handwriting, incorrect effective dates, etc. Plus, having the contributions, and benefit details right there for the employee, it makes their options and costs easy to see in order to make an informed decision.

Nachteile:

The search function is a bit limited. When searching for an employee, it will only search within the selected status, ie "Active", so it can make searching a little more complex than it could be.

Easy Ease

Kommentare: This has made quite a difference in managing multiple Clients and their needs. By far Ease maintains to best Support Teams for any product that I have used. They are quick, knowledgeable, capable and friendly!

Vorteile:

This product is easy to set up and manage. The deployment to new hires and at Open Enrollment time gives us all time savings and the critical control of those processes.

Nachteile:

Some of the features have idiosyncrasies. I find that I call Support several times a year over such things.

Broker with large and small clients on EaseCentral

Kommentare: Able to offer Ben administration at no charge to all our clients as perk of doing business with us. We charge set up fees for micrclients only.

Vorteile:

Able to manage all Ben administration needs and keep close eye on employee experience and provide our tailored employee decision support, ability to fix employee errors/changes and override quickly and easily

Nachteile:

All systems demand set up time- this is no different, took my staff time to get through learning curve mostly self taught- need staff who can do this efficiently

Ease August Review

Kommentare: Love, Ease. We have needed a platform like this for years.

Vorteile:

How it gathers all the information we could possible need about a company and its employees in one place. How efficient it is to enroll & re-enroll employees.

Nachteile:

I wish there were more CRM features in Ease. Adding custom rates doesn't always work out for me. When an app for a carrier isn't in the library, I wish we could add it immediately and no have to wait for Ease to add it.

Ease is Easy

Kommentare: Overall one of the best and simplest systems I have worked with

Vorteile:

Streamlined benefit administration with the ability to save HR department hours of work by automating.

Nachteile:

Customer Service contact can be delayed as they are on the west coast.

EASE makes Benefit Administration Easy

Kommentare: I enjoy using/working with EASE. It makes my job easier with helping our clients and any issues they may have.

Vorteile:

EASE is fairly intuitive and setting up clients/benefits is pretty easy. I especially LOVE/appreciate that if I get stuck on something, EASE customer service is TOP NOTCH.

Nachteile:

I'm sure there are some, I just can't think of any.

Super easy to work with and easy to use website.

Kommentare: Ease of enrollment for our clients, ability to print carrier forms and rates for payroll.

Vorteile:

Ease of use. It takes little time to set up and if I need help, the customer supposed team is top notch!

Nachteile:

I think I like least is how the rates and plans are designed. It's very hard to find the medical plan rates you need and often the medical benefits has errors.