Cassi Gipson, director of risk management – insurance, Encompass Health Organization
Sometimes the solutions derived by our Risk All Stars are staggering.
Have a look at the Encompass Health Corporation. With more than 170 hospitals and over 40,000 employees nationwide, it relies on a lean two-person risk management team to oversee its corporate insurance program.
Under the leadership of Cassi Gipson, director of risk management – insurance, the company has reimagined how it manages the vast amounts of data tied to claims, coverage and compliance.
Instead of buying an expensive risk management information system, she used the tools at her disposal and turned a daunting administrative challenge into a model of efficiency.
Managing a corporate insurance program across a network as large as Encompass Health’s generated overwhelming volumes of data spread across spreadsheets, emails and folders. Responding to inquiries about claims or program details often consumed hours of digging through disconnected sources, creating stress for the small team and delays for the broader organization.
While a full Risk Management Information System (RMIS) offered the ideal solution, the cost placed it outside the company’s budget. Rather than wait, Gipson built an integrated solution using the tools her company already had.
She developed SharePoint worksheets to support collaboration on complex tasks, including tracking claim payments and self-insurance regulatory requirements by state.
SharePoint lists, paired with associate forms, now collect data and simplify requests for certificates of insurance, bonds and asset changes.
Encompass Health also adopted Microsoft Power Automate to streamline communication, replacing paper forms and manual email drafting with automated workflows that route complete information directly to brokers.
Under Gipson’s direction, the team consolidated these tools within a shared OneNote notebook, enabling quick claim reporting, COI requests, contract exception tracking and access to facility information across the larger team.
“Now we’re getting an automated email with all of the necessary information and forwarding it to the broker,” she said.
“Maybe one day we will get to the point of implementing a RMIS, but for now, using the tools and gifts at our disposal has solved a high five to six figure problem for us,” she added.
Pulling everything together saved time, but automation delivered the most meaningful results. It reduced the time required to report losses, request COIs and process other policy changes by more than 50%.
By using existing tools creatively, Encompass Health addressed a daunting challenge without the cost of a full RMIS.“I’ve loved dreaming up solutions and the trial and error of getting to the right configuration,” Gipson said.
“I believe that this has grown me as a person, professional and a leader,” she added. “I wish I could say that I have a ‘final product,’ but working on these solutions has become like a rabbit hole. And now I’m looking at the process saying, ‘How can automation make this simpler and more efficient?’ ” &