The Growing Role AI Will Play in HSAs and Employee Benefits

Last Updated: December 16, 2021

Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in many aspects of business, including human resources (HR). As the capabilities of AI continue to grow, these tools will be able to accomplish more and perform a greater number of tasks, freeing up HR staff to work more directly with employees to resolve issues, writes 

Tom Torre, Founder, and CEO of Bend.

Among the areas where AI will likely continue to have big impacts are health savings accounts (HSAs) and employee benefits. HSAs have existed since 2004 and have seen little innovation or change since. Now, with forward-looking administrators applying AI, the HSA and employee benefits markets are being disrupted in a big way.

The use of AI can facilitate processes in ways that no other technologies can. For instance, machine learning (an aspect of AI) can pick up patterns such as enrollment trends, grow in its ability to analyze and respond to changes, and with this increased “knowledge” become extremely valuable to users over time by providing guidance and advice.

Other technologies tend to be static and offer limited interactivity. AI, on the other hand, can become a tremendous teacher and guide, making offerings and products much more useful to organizations.

Why should C-suite executives and HR/benefits leaders pay more attention to how AI will evolve? Yes. The main reason is AI can increase productivity and make apparent the value of benefits to employees. In some cases, the technologies can help employees make appropriate choices.

In addition, at its finest AI can not only help HR staff do more with less but also enhance benefit offerings and make them more useful to employees, given their specific needs and wants.

Impact on HSAs and Benefits

HR managers should look to adopt technology tools that leverage AI to help offload many of the manual and tedious tasks currently required of the staff. The technology can also simplify and streamline benefit offerings and individualize and optimize the benefits for employees.

Finally, using these advanced technologies will inevitably eliminate the need for cumbersome amounts of paper, immediately cutting costs for the employer and helping the environment.

Looking ahead, AI will become even more important in how companies manage HSAs and benefits because of its power in guiding employees and the value it can add to HR interactions, the process of benefits enrollment, and the end-use of benefits.

The latest generation of decision-making tools to help employees choose benefits are increasingly powered by AI. As the number of benefit choices increases and those choices become more complicated, the need for AI to help guide employees will also increase.

For HSAs to become more useful to employees, employees need to understand potential tax savings, eligible medical expenses, and other aspects to using the account to its maximum benefit. AI will play an increasingly important role in providing that education.

While the benefits of AI for HR and benefits in general and HSA, in particular, seem clear, a number of common misconceptions about AI might be keeping some companies from deploying these types of technologies.

These misconceptions center around a few key concepts. First, there is a common belief that AI actually thinks for itself. As it works in solutions such as the Bend Advisor from Bend HSA, AI gathers data from linked accounts, analyzes the data and makes well-informed, self-evident recommendations based on that analysis.

The technology also categorizes expenses so that the account holder can view where their healthcare spending is going at a glance. AI doesn’t make decisions on its own, thereby leaving control in the hands of the employee. AI helps alert the account holder of potential savings opportunities and provides recommendations on how to best use the account.

Along the same lines, another common misconception is that AI tools are off doing things on their own with no human oversight. AI applications today are typically for specific tasks, such as maximizing the benefits of an HSA. The tools will fail if they are applied to the wrong task.

The truth is, at least at this point, AI is not all that good at improvising. Because of this and many other reasons, AI will not replace all human workers or turn against them—another common misunderstanding. While a robot uprising might make for interesting science fiction, the reality is this should not be a concern for HR managers or anyone else who uses AI.

The bottom line is that AI makes it easier to find the information that users need, and products such as the Bend Advisor leverage AI to make life easier for employees and managers.

The Bend Advisor has two main ways of serving HSA accountholders. First, employees can link their other spending accounts such as savings and checking to their Bend HSA. The Bend Advisor then uses machine learning to review spending patterns and calls out potential eligible expenses.

Once the account holder makes a reimbursement, the Bend Advisor then sorts the expenses into categories such as medical, pharmacy, vision, dental, and other. This allows account holders to track their expenses and see where they are spending their healthcare dollars.

Learn More: Employee Health Benefits Evolve Amidst New Regulations for ICHRAs in 2020Opens a new window

These types of features can help account holders maximize the benefits of their HSA.

  • The Bend Advisor also serves accountholders and employers as a conversational assistant or chatbot. The Bend Advisor is available to answer questions in real-time, as they come up. This provides quick learning opportunities for both employers and account holders.
     
  • Much of the AI capabilities used in the Bend Advisor have been disruptive to the industry for the better. The company designed and built its entire service model to leverage AI technology to continually improve how the platform assists employers and account holders.
     
  • In addition to offering more features to the HSA itself, the company plans to provide additional integrations, new offerings, and other ways in which to help clients adapt to the constantly changing nature of healthcare financing and other HR benefits.

Learn More: What Do Employees Need to Know about Open Enrollment?Opens a new window

Tom Torre
Tom Torre

Chief Executive Officer, Bend HSA

Tom Torre is CEO of Bend HSA.  For nearly 20 years, Tom has led organizations in the consumer-directed healthcare space as a fintech and healthcare entrepreneur.  Prior to Bend, he was CEO of Co-Patient, a leading provider of technology-enabled healthcare expense management solutions.  Before that, he was CEO of Alegeus Technologies, a provider of payment and healthcare information technology services.
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