Management platform for displaying benefit plan data to permitted entities
View Patent ↗An Internet-accessible employee portal provides a display interface that enables an employee to find and review employee-specific benefits (e.g., Summary Plan Description (SPD)) information. In addition, the employee portal exports an administrative page by which permitted users (e.g., HR managers) can receive a delivery status report that consolidates delivery status information for multiple employees within the enterprise. This display facilitates electronic compliance with legal and audit requirements by correlating employee notifications and portal access reports.
1. An apparatus for providing a benefits plan employee portal, comprising:
an Internet-accessible infrastructure operating at a service provider domain, the Internet-accessible infrastructure comprising:
a set of one or more web servers;
a set of one or more application servers; and
a database;
the Internet-accessible infrastructure comprising at least one hardware element and operative to expose a set of display interfaces, the display interfaces including:
a first display interface responsive to receipt of an authentication credential of a first employee to display, from a set of summary plan descriptions, a subset of one or more summary plan descriptions associated with one or more respective benefit plans for which the first employee is eligible as determined by the authentication credential, to receive a search query against the one or more summary plan descriptions displayed, and to display text from at least one or more of the summary plan descriptions that matches the search query;
a second display interface to identify at least a second employee, to receive text associated with a notification, and to send the notification to the second employee, the notification being associated with a modification to a benefits plan;
a third display interface to identify, for the second employee, one or more delivery attempts of the notification and whether the notification was delivered to the second employee; and
a fourth display interface to identify, for the second employee, one or more access attempts by the second employee; and
at least one application server including program code to compare data associated with the one or more delivery attempts of the notification with data associated with the one or more access requests by the second employee to establish, as a proof of compliance, that the second employee has received the notification of the modification to the benefits plan and has reviewed the notification.
2. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the database stores an eligibility file, the eligibility file associating the authentication credential of the first employee with identifiers for the one or more summary plan descriptions.
3. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein at least one application server enforces a role-based access control to verify that an entity is authorized to access the benefits plan employee portal.
4. The apparatus as described in claim 1 wherein the first display interface is provided as one or more web pages delivered from at least one of the web servers.
5. An apparatus for providing a benefits plan employee portal, comprising:
an Internet-accessible infrastructure operating at a service provider domain, the Internet-accessible infrastructure comprising:
a set of one or more web servers;
a set of one or more application servers; and
a database;
the Internet-accessible infrastructure comprising at least one hardware element and operative to expose a set of display interfaces, the display interfaces including:
a first display interface to identify at least a first employee, to receive text associated with a notification, and to send the notification to the first employee, the notification being associated with a modification to a benefits plan;
a second display interface to identify, for the first employee, one or more delivery attempts of the notification and whether the notification was delivered to the first employee; and
a third display interface to identify, for the first employee, one or more access attempts by the first employee;
at least one application server including program code to compare data associated with the one or more delivery attempts of the notification with data associated with the one or more access requests by the first employee to establish, as a proof of compliance, that the first employee has received the notification of the modification to the benefits plan and has reviewed the notification.
6. The apparatus as described in claim 5 wherein the display interfaces also include:
a fourth display interface responsive to receipt of an authentication credential of a second employee to display, from a set of summary plan descriptions, a subset of one or more summary plan descriptions associated with one or more respective benefit plans for which the second employee is eligible as determined by the authentication credential, to receive a search query against the one or more summary plan descriptions displayed, and to display text from at least one or more of the summary plan descriptions that matches the search query.
7. The apparatus as described in claim 5 wherein the database stores an eligibility file, the eligibility file associating the authentication credential of the second employee with identifiers for the one or more summary plan descriptions.
8. The apparatus as described in claim 5 wherein at least one application server enforces a role-based access control to verify that an entity is authorized to access the benefits plan employee portal.
9. The apparatus as in claim 5 wherein at least one of the display interfaces is provided as one or more web pages delivered from at least one of the web servers.