16 blog posts tagged "Security"

Here is a day to consider protecting sensitive data, whether it's names, addresses, social security numbers, telephone numbers, email addresses, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, financial data, or biometric records! Today's the day to double-check your systems and ensure accurate information management. It’s Computer Security Day, baby! 2-factor authentication? Check. Fingerprint and facial recognition? Check. Passwords over 15 characters long with alternating capital and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers? Check!Your IT team is metaphorically making you double-pull on that yellow tab to ensure you’re strapped in securely.

84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services, according to a Salesforce report. Over the past decade, the insurance market has become saturated with endless products and options. Buyers have adjusted and evolved in response to the buffet of insurance options, becoming more sophisticated and specific in what they need and want. To keep these sophisticated buyers at your insurance smorgasbord rather than the other guys’, it’s essential to understand their new and improved expectations.

Remember that phrase we all used in middle school, “Well if you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” Well, we couldn’t agree more. Address data and insurance claims have been partners in an ever-evolving landscape of technology and property for years. Insurance claims rely on geocoding to find the exact location, and property data is used to assess the property's condition and attached amenities before losses. Efficiently deploying adjusters and accurately assessing damage is impossible without accurate address data.

In our recent webinar, Gianmarco Rosborough, Smarty's legal counsel, provided valuable insights on smart practices and legal considerations for using address data. Smarty offers the most accurate and easy-to-implement address intelligence suite, processing billions of addresses daily with a reliable API. This tool helps businesses clean data, lower shipping costs, and enhance user experiences with exceptional support. If your organization works with addresses, it's important for you to be aware of the legal ramifications of storing bad address data.

Lawyers get a bad rap. Lawyers have been around for a long time, and when you're this old, you're bound to collect your fair share of good and bad. It's true, ask your grandpa. We've got records of people described as "lawyers" going back to ancient Greece, Rome, and the Byzantines. These first individuals were folks who were asked to speak for the accused because those under scrutiny were—understandably so—shaken up by the situation. It went from someone who was your friend and did you a favor by speaking on your behalf to someone who knew all of the laws, and you'd hire them to speak eloquently for you.

Webinar recap: In a recent webinar, we showed how address data tools help managers improve business performance in the following areas:Network PlanningAsset ManagementCustomer Acquisition and RetentionData BlendingMail and Parcel DeliveryFraud Reduction1. Network planningAccurate address data plays a critical role in overcoming network planning challenges. We presented solutions at each of the following steps in the network planning process: Clean existing address data with US Address VerificationKeep incoming data clean with US Address AutocompleteMap all addresses using our US Master Address List and hyper-accurate US Rooftop GeocodingAdd context to maps with enriched US Property DataAnalyze, get spatial insights, and make confident business decisions 2.

Smarty™ recently hosted an enlightening webinar on Project US@, a vital initiative in health information technology. The webinar, led by Wes Arnold, Team Lead of Product Marketing, provided insights into Project US@ and its significant role in patient data management. What is Project US@?Project US@ is led by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in collaboration with HSC and AHIMA. The final version 1. 0 was released on January 7, 2022. The goal? The initiative's main objective is to establish a standard approach for representing patient addresses across all health IT systems.

In our previous post, we prescribed solutions to the problems associated with having bad address data in the software side of healthcare. If you would like to go over those again, or if you stumbled upon Post 3 before the previous blogs, you can read Post 1 or Post 2 now. In this third and final installment, we hope to provide even more solutions to healthcare hiccups on the SaaS side. Software and real-time data go hand in handPreviously, we discussed how many healthcare companies are struggling to keep up with their data storage and why it’s essential to clean up the mess.

Address keys can be used to improve data blending, update and enrich addresses, reduce data processing time, and protect personally identifiable information. In this webinar, we brought in our product marketing manager John Hickey to teach about what they are, how they work, why they're crucial for data management, the different types available, what to look for in one, and what to avoid. Ultimately, John pointed out five primary uses for address keys:1. Update Address Changes2. Simplify Data Blending3.

Handling address data is such a routine occurrence for health insurance providers that it’s not the first thing that would come to mind as being a liability. However, the reality is that discrepancies and inaccuracies in address data can have far-reaching consequences, posing serious privacy and compliance risks. Healthcare fraud, reputational damage, and financial penalties are just a few examples of the potential hazards. In this blog, we’ll delve into three common types of privacy and compliance risks resulting from incorrect or incomplete address data.

When it comes to physical health, sometimes the smallest things can have a big impact. A microscopic virus or a small injury can develop into a life-threatening infection before you even know it’s there — and conversely, a tiny pill or ointment can save a life. The little things matter when it comes to health data, too. In particular, address data is a small part of a patient profile that can have far-reaching effects if it is incorrect or incomplete. Address data is a key information point at the center of billing and communication with patients, and even a slight mistake in an address—a missing unit number or a misspelled street name—can make mail undeliverable.

Ever since the first Blue Cross health insurance plan was provided to Texas schoolteachers in 1929 for a monthly fee of $6, health insurance providers have formed the backbone of the American healthcare system. Today, as that system faces ongoing scrutiny, health insurance providers are still at the heart of the action, striving to connect patients to the highest possible quality of care while navigating significant changes including rising costs, digital transformation, medical advances, customer expectations, and ever-present regulations.

A plethora of inspirational quotes float around the internet and office lobbies about how "Wise men don't blindly follow rules, they use them as guidelines" or "Making up your own rules is the trick to success. "That's great for a motivational speech, but for industries like healthcare, insurance, banking, and others, the rules are very important. These are some of the most regulated industries in the United States; organizations in these industries must comply with strict rules and regulations from the government.

No matter the industry, data security is, and always will be, paramount. Data breaches can cause significant revenue loss and customer trust. No doubt you remember the 2017 Equifax data breach. This breach affected 148 million records, including social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and, in some cases, driver's license numbers and credit card information. Equifax paid out $700 million in damages to help people affected by the data breach, and suffered through reputational damage and congressional inquiries.

A deceitfully comforting illusionIn the US today, there are nearly 800,000 registered sex offenders. As part of the registration process, each sex offender is required to report their physical address to a local police department (the exact process varies from state to state). This is intended to empower the public to be able to identify where these offenders live and if one of them lives near you. Having this information, you are supposed to be able to better protect your loved ones and yourself.

While it's an unfortunate truth of of today's e-commerce world, it is one that cannot be ignored: Fraud is ever-present in online transactions. The expense of unnecessary shipping costs and human resources, disgruntled customers, and the time it takes to investigate disputes adds up. And the damage to a company's brand may result in untold amounts of lost sales. Using an address verification service (or AVS) as one of the tools in your fraud management toolbox is a smart and cost-effective move.