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Solutions May 2006
Feature
Article
Health
Care
Making
a Project Out of a Product
Proforma
Anchor Business Forms seizes the
opportunity with an
HMO and lands an enrollment project
with 10 insurance companies
By
LaShell Stratton
In
every sale is a nugget of opportunity
to secure another sale—
even in the health care market.
IN BRIEF
A
distributorship helps 10 insurance
companies coordinate information
packets for 139,000 state employees
in Florida during an annual open
enrollment program. Careful handling
of this big job could mean more
business for the distributor.
This
year, Bill Parsons, owner of Proforma
Anchor Business Forms, Tallahassee,
Fla., did just that when he parlayed
printing a few items for a local
HMO into becoming the project
manager responsible for the coordination
of a statewide open enrollment
program. His project management
services would help Proforma Anchor
Business Forms secure the distribution
of 10 insurance companies’
information packets for 139,000
state employees in Florida.
In
2004, Proforma Anchor Business
Forms helped its customer, Capital
Insurance Agency, with a few print
items that would be part of the
annual open enrollment for state
employees to sign up for new health
insurance. Other insurance companies
included among the open enrollment
options were American Family Life
Assurance Company of Columbus
(AFLAC) and Prudential Financial,
to name a few. “The woman
at Capital who was organizing
the packets for the enrollment
program said the whole thing was
just driving her crazy,”
Parsons says. “I started
thinking there is a real opportunity
here for us.” So Parsons
offered to have Proforma take
over the open enrollment packet
preparation for Capital Insurance
Agency last October.
Proforma
had to work with the 10 insurance
companies to coordinate all the
items they wanted to go into the
information packet. “We
started planning about three months
before the deadline set by the
state. The insurance companies
told us basically what we needed
to do,” Parsons says. “Some
of the items came from corporate.
But some of it we did ourselves.
We even redesigned the application
form.”
Proforma
created an enrollment booklet
that was an 8-part unit set printed
on 20# white bond requiring 16
different plates. It was printed
on a web press, perfed and collated.
“The enrollment booklet
had been just saddle-stitched,
so you couldn’t tear out
anything,” he says. “We
came up with the perforation idea.”
Parsons
says Proforma also produced a
4-color brochure for AFLAC and
a 10- by 13-inch envelope with
a latex seal to mail the packets.
In addition, they even created
a CD of all the forms. “But
we sent it out only to about 2,500
people,” he says. “They
were worried that not enough people
would have access to a CD-ROM.
But the layout was pretty good.
We designed an index of the documents
and we had a link for each of
the insurance companies so you
could instantly go to their web
site if you needed more information.”
In total, 11 items were in the
enrollment packet that went to
all the employees of state agencies
and state universities.
Parsons
says Proforma even handled the
distribution and shipping for
the enrollment program. “The
state provided us with a Microsoft
Excel spreadsheet of addresses
and we reviewed it,” he
says. “We sent out the packets
by bulk rather than first-class
mail. Everything was shipped on
pallets.”
Parsons
believes that the high-profile
project went well and he hopes
they will be selected to do it
again next time. “From our
end, we didn’t have too
many snags. It went pretty smoothly,”
he says.
LaShell
Stratton is an assistant editor
at Print Solutions magazine. Email
your comments to lstratton@PSDA.org.
Project
Management Tips
Supply
timelines. When coordinating a
large project that involves so
many different entities, Bill
Parsons, owner of Proforma Anchor
Business Forms, says distributors
should supply a roadmap showing
when all parties should have their
portion of the project completed
and shipped. “Our biggest
challenge was to get the information
from the insurance companies in
the appropriate time according
to the schedule the state had
set,” he says. “That’s
why we gave them the timeline.”
Avoid
headaches by preparing for lots
of changes. Parsons says that
because the state had to approve
the final enrollment packet and
application form, Proforma received
input from several agencies. “When
you’re dealing with the
state, you need approval from
lots of people,” he says.
“We got requests for enrollment
form rewrites from at least four
different agencies. We were constantly
making changes based on feedback.”
