Hospital Benefits Administration: Simplify Healthcare Workforce Benefits and Contain Costs

Hospital Benefits Administration: How HR Can Help Healthcare Workers Understand and Choose the Right Benefits

Managing HR for a hospital is not your typical 9-to-5 job. Hospital HR professionals operate in a 24/7 environment where the stakes are sometimes quite literally life and death. On top of that, your workforce is a dizzying and complicated mix of clinicians, administrators and support staff.  

While your friends in other industries are talking about unlimited PTO and remote work arrangements, you’re trying to keep your best nurses from burning out and leaving for a travel assignment that pays twice as much. So, it’s more than just a completely different ball game. It’s a different sport altogether. 

And those unique challenges call for a unique benefits administration solution. 

Why is hospital benefits administration so complex?

To begin with, hospital system employees have different needs and face pressures unlike those in any other industry. Because of this, it’s not just about offering good medical and dental coverage—it’s about building a package that can meet the demands of a healthcare career. 

• 24/7 staffing demands: Hospital employees don’t punch a simple 9-to-5 clock. Your workforce is a blend of full-time, part-time, per-diem and contract staff. They work nights, weekends and holidays—sometimes all in a stretch. Plus, that’s not even mentioning the travel nurses, on-call staff, shift differentials and everything else. You need a system built for this complexity—one that doesn’t trigger payroll errors, compliance headaches or just plain old migraines. 

• The weight of the work: The physical burden and emotional weight on hospital staff cannot be underestimated. That’s why benefits like workers’ compensation, disability insurance and solid mental health programs aren’t just perks. Instead, these are essential benefits, necessary to support employees who often put patients’ well-being ahead of their own. 

• Communication challenges: Reaching employees in a hospital isn’t like blasting all-hands emails to an office. Most staff aren’t parked at a desk. In fact, they’re on the move all hours of the day and night. That’s why it takes creative, flexible employee communications to make sure employees receive timely, personalized and actionable messages. 

• A unique workforce: Eligibility gets complicated in a hurry. Doctors, corporate staff and union agreements can all need different plan menus. And that is not to mention demographics. About 55% of medical school graduates and 88.5% of registered nurses are women—many in their childbearing years—so short-term disability and parental leave are critical. Plus, one in five physicians is already beyond the retirement age of 65. Consequently, you need solid retention plans for late-career talent. 

• Attracting and retaining top talent: Many doctors, specialists and nurses are saddled with massive student loans. In fact, the average medical school graduate has $246,659 in educational debt. This financial stress is a constant pressure point. So, benefits like tuition reimbursement and loan forgiveness aren’t just perks. In fact, they’re really lifelines that can make or break the decision to stay with you. 

• Constant scheduling challenges: Finally, managing benefits for a 24/7 workforce with variable shifts, on-call hours and per-diem staff—not to mention compliance with break, overtime and multi-state labor laws—demands a flexible system. Actually, it’s vital for maintaining compliance with countless labor laws. A rigid, outdated platform just adds to the administrative burdens on HR.  

Basically, your employees just aren’t like those in other industries, and neither are their needs. That is why you need a benefits administration partner who specializes in this complexity. 

How can better HR tech help healthcare workers understand their benefits? 

You can make benefits easier for your healthcare workforce to understand and engage with by using technology that educates and guides them to the choices that are right for them. After a rough 12-hour shift, the last thing healthcare workers want to do is navigate a confusing portal or try to decipher complex benefits documents. That’s why personalized decision support makes a huge difference. 

Take MaineHealth, Northern New England’s largest health system. They offered competitive benefits, but adoption rates for voluntary plans like hospital indemnity and critical illness were stubbornly low. The HR team knew their people would benefit from this extra layer of financial protection, but it was complicated to explain.  

They didn’t want to just cross their fingers and hope employees would fumble through it. So, they worked with bswift to integrate an AI-powered tool called Emma™ directly into their enrollment process. Emma acts as a personal benefits guide, asking simple questions and offering tailored recommendations in plain English. In fact, she can provide those recommendations in more than 150 other languages. The impact was immediate. 

• 46% growth in Hospital Indemnity coverage 

• 51% increase in Critical Illness enrollment 

• 31% jump in Accident Insurance 

More importantly, the number of employees enrolling in all three voluntary benefits shot up by a staggering 560%. The full details are available in our MaineHealth case study.  

By making benefits easier to understand, MaineHealth didn’t just improve enrollment numbers, they gave their workforce greater financial security and peace of mind. 

How can hospital systems reduce benefits costs without cutting benefits?

For healthcare HR leaders, the most effective way to control benefits costs is by eliminating administrative waste—not reducing benefits. 

The truth is, most unnecessary spending doesn’t come from the benefits themselves but from clunky, error-prone admin systems not built with the complexity of a hospital workforce in mind. For example, things like payroll mistakes and premiums for ineligible dependents can quietly chip away at budgets. But by using a benefits platform with smart automation and built-in accuracy checks, healthcare systems can eliminate these costly errors. 

For one regional health system, partnering with bswift was the fresh approach they needed. With more than 16,000 employees counting on them, they found themselves stuck in outdated, manual processes. Because of this, they were losing money in ways they couldn’t quite see.  

Together, we launched numerous benefits admin and HR services, including: 

• A closed-loop payroll process to ensure deduction accuracy. 

• An AI-powered Dependent Verification system to tighten up coverage. 

• Service center support through bswift to handle employee questions. 

• Full management of ACA compliance and reporting. 

As a result, their payoff was huge: 

• 14,000 enrollment files automatically sent to vendors 

• 2.8 million employee changes processed annually 

• $180,000 recovered from retro premiums and missed deductions 

• $8–$10 million projected savings each year from ongoing dependent verification 

• 98% employee satisfaction and more than 100,000 minutes of HR’s time saved through bswift’s Service Center 

The takeaway is that you don’t have to choose between cost control and a great employee experience. With the right partner and smarter tools, healthcare systems can definitely do both. Read the full case study to see how bswift helped strengthen mission, culture and cost-efficiency through smarter benefits administration. 

What should a hospital benefits administration solution include?

Essentially, a benefits administration solution built for hospitals should include complex workforce management, regulatory compliance automation, seamless payroll integration, mobile-friendly employee self-service and advanced analytics.  

These stories are just a small window into what’s possible with a benefits administration platform built for the complexity of hospitals.  

In fact, with 106 health system clients and a 98% client retention rate, we know what makes a successful hospital benefits administration solution. It’s about more than just software. It’s about a deep understanding of what hospital HR needs to be successful. 

• Complex workforce management: Our solution handles variable shifts, part-time and per-diem staff, diverse employee categories, and flexible eligibility rules with ease. Because of this, you can more easily eliminate errors and reduce administrative burdens. 

• Ironclad compliance: We provide automated reporting and clear audit trails for HIPAA, ACA, COBRA, ERISA and other healthcare regulations, giving you confidence and reducing risk. For example, with Texas Children’s Hospital, we’ve generated over 85,000 1095 forms since 2019. 

• Seamless integration: bswift integrates smoothly with your existing payroll and HRIS systems. As a result, it ensures data accuracy and saving your team countless hours of manual data entry and reconciliation. 

• Mobile-first self-service: Your employees aren’t tied to a desk. They’re on the move and caring for the community. That’s why our intuitive, mobile-friendly portals give them 24/7 access to their benefits information, anytime, anywhere. 

• Actionable analytics: Finally, our advanced analytics dashboards give you insight into benefits utilization, cost drivers, enrollment trends, and more. As a result, you can make data-driven decisions that support your budget and workforce retention efforts. 

In the end, what you need is confidence. You need confidence that your benefits are a strategic asset, not an administrative burden. You need confidence that your people feel supported and valued. And most importantly, you need confidence that you have a partner who is just as committed to your mission as you are.  

Hospitals are different. Your challenges are unique,.and your benefits partner should be, too. 

FAQs: Common questions about benefits administration for hospital systems

How does bswift handle the complex eligibility rules for part-time and per-diem hospital staff?
Our platform is specifically designed for complex workforces. In fact, we configure flexible eligibility rules that can automatically manage benefits for variable-hour employees, different shifts, and on-call staff, ensuring accuracy without manual intervention. 

Can bswift integrate with our existing HRIS and payroll vendors?
Yes. Seamless integration is one of our core strengths. bswift’s API gateway and established connections with major HRIS and payroll systems ensure that data for deductions, eligibility, and employee changes flows accurately and efficiently. 

What kind of support does bswift offer for employee benefits education?
We provide a suite of communication and decision-support tools, including our AI-powered guide, Emma. These tools help simplify complex healthcare plans, offer personalized recommendations, and guide employees through enrollment, boosting their confidence and satisfaction. 

How does bswift ensure HIPAA compliance and data security?
Our data systems and processes are built to exceed industry standards for security and compliance. Because of that, we can provide built-in tools for HIPAA, ACA and COBRA administration, including automated reporting and secure data handling, to protect your organization and your employees.