Management and delivery of product information
First Claim
1. A method comprising enabling an insurance carrier to create and maintain, on a server, product information that characterizes insurance products that are distributed by the insurance carrier through an employer to employees, enabling retrieval at the server of employee information about the employees that is under control of the employer or the carrier, and enabling individuals who are members with respect to the products of the insurance carrier to access the server to obtain answers to questions based on the product information and the employee information.
5 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Among other things, a method that includes (1) enabling an insurance carrier to create and maintain, on a server, product information that characterizes insurance products that are distributed by the insurance carrier through an employer to employees, (2) enabling retrieval at the server of employee information about the employees that is under control of the employer, and (3) enabling employees who are members with respect to the products of the insurance carrier to access the server to obtain answers to questions based on the product information and the employee information.
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Citations
52 Claims
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1. A method comprising
enabling an insurance carrier to create and maintain, on a server, product information that characterizes insurance products that are distributed by the insurance carrier through an employer to employees, enabling retrieval at the server of employee information about the employees that is under control of the employer or the carrier, and enabling individuals who are members with respect to the products of the insurance carrier to access the server to obtain answers to questions based on the product information and the employee information.
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14. A method comprising
during a development phase, creating and storing template information that characterizes types of insurance products, during a publication phase, pre-processing the template information to create a published body of information about the types of insurance products and storing the published body of information in a server, the published body of information being configured to require less processing than the template information to respond to questions, and during a run-time phase, applying questions received at the server about the insurance products to the published body of information to generate answers to the questions.
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17. A medium on which is stored a machine-readable representation of a product,
the product including conditional obligations of one party to another, the representation of the product being stored in accordance with a standardized format for expression of characteristics of the product, the characteristics including conditions under which a party would be eligible to obtain the product and conditions under which a party that has obtained the product is entitled to receive the benefit of the obligations included in the product, the representation of the product implying an interface that enables applications to create, maintain, and access the representation of the product for predefined purposes.
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24. A method comprising
enabling parties that belong to a supply chain for products to create product definitions for each of the products in accordance with a standardized product-definition format, the products being of a kind that encompass conditional obligations of suppliers of the products, enabling each of the parties that create product definitions to store the product definitions in a manner that makes them accessible to at least one of the other parties in the supply chain, and giving access to at least one of the parties in the supply chain to the stored product definitions in connection with a commercial transaction.
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36. A method comprising
from a server, enabling an employee of an employer to get answers to questions that relate to characteristics of an insurance product of a carrier with respect to which the employee is or may become a member, analyzing the employee'"'"'s interaction with the server, based on the analysis and on information known to the employer about the employee, determining other insurance products of the carrier that may be of interest to the employee, and providing information about the other products to the employee in conjunction with providing answers to the questions of the employee.
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41. A system comprising
a knowledgebase of information about products that represent conditional obligations of a supplier of the products, an evaluation layer that evaluates information in the knowledgebase in response to requests from a presentation layer, the presentation layer being configured to respond to queries received from a publicly accessible communication network, and a components layer configured to manage sessions with users from whom the queries are received.
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50. A system comprising
access to a legacy health care information system, and enhancements to the legacy health care information system that enable an insurance carrier to create and maintain product information that characterizes insurance products that are distributed by the insurance carrier through the employer to employees, enable retrieval of employee information about the employees from the legacy system, and enable employees who are members with respect to the products of the insurance carrier to obtain answers to questions based on the product information and the employee information.
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51. A system comprising
a web portal that makes health care information available to the public through the Internet, and enhancements to the web portal that enable an insurance carrier to create and maintain product information that characterizes insurance products that are distributed by the insurance carrier, and enable employees who are members with respect to the products of the insurance carrier to obtain answers to questions based on the product information.
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52. A method comprising
enabling an benefits provider or a financial institution to create and maintain, on a server, product information that characterizes products that are distributed by the provider or institution to individuals, enabling retrieval at the server of information about the individuals that is under control of the provider or institution or a third party, and enabling individuals who are members with respect to the products of the provider or institution to access the server to obtain answers to questions based on the product information and the information about the individuals.
Specification