What enrollment automation costs a benefits agency, and what the hand work costs now

How does DoBetter price an enrollment build?

Every DoBetter build is a fixed fee, scoped after discovery. It works in four steps:

1. A free intro call. It takes 30 minutes.
2. A $1,500 paid discovery. Half is credited to your first month, and it’s a full refund if I can’t help.
3. A fixed fee build.
4. Optional monthly support.

Nothing is billed by the hour. I’m Chris Cordon, and I run discovery myself.

What makes an enrollment build cost more or less?

The biggest driver of an enrollment build is the number of carriers it has to talk to. Every carrier has its own census template. One carrier template my enrollment platform fills has room for a spouse and 10 children on every row. Two carriers is a smaller job than eight.

Other things that move the price:

How the carrier takes the data.

Filling a carrier’s own Excel template is simpler than pushing enrollments through a carrier’s API, which needs testing in the carrier’s test environment first.

How messy the source is.

The census export I work from repeats a row for every health condition, so the tool has to remove duplicate people before it does anything else.

How many products.

My enrollment platform carries 14 ancillary products plus up to 3 medical plans per group, each with its own rates.

How many systems connect.

Linking the proposal tool, the enrollment platform, and the CRM means more handoffs to build and test.

How many people use it.

One account manager is simpler than a team with separate logins.

What does census work by hand cost?

Census work by hand costs time on every new group. Before my census tool, we sifted through an Excel workbook to find the three sheets that held the data. Then we filled a spreadsheet with about 11 columns, and turned around and filled one with 163 columns. We’d already stopped asking the client to fill out census information twice, once in the health application and once in a spreadsheet, because that was one too many. So the typing came in house.

What does chasing paper applications cost?

Chasing paper applications costs time and goodwill. “This is 100% always about time.” One pitfall stands out: people signing in blue ballpoint pen when the application clearly says black ink only. That happened more than once.

The goodwill cost is quieter. “We were only pushy to get them to make a decision. We didn’t care if it was yes or no, but it doesn’t matter what you’re pushy about. You’re just viewed as pushy.”

What does it cost to skip CRM activity logging?

Skipping CRM activity logging costs you your ratios. “You cannot manage what you don’t measure.” I wanted to see how many emails it took me to get an appointment, how many follow up emails it took for somebody to make a decision, and how many decision makers I talked to. My CRM has logged 19,844 timeline events so far.

What does commission tracking by hand cost?

Commission tracking by hand costs time every time a carrier statement arrives. I haven’t built commission tracking, and I haven’t measured that time. A commission build is scoped in discovery like everything else.

Quick answers

Is there a refund?

Yes. If discovery shows I can’t help, the $1,500 comes back.

Can I start with just the census tool?

Yes. It’s the build I’d start most agencies with.

Is there a monthly fee?

Only if you want ongoing support. The build itself is a fixed fee.

Do you charge per employee or per group?

No. The fee is set by the scope of the build.

Why isn’t the build price on the site?

Because it depends on your carriers and systems, which discovery sorts out.