Linking Members

Next you will link each of the members and coverages in your system with Noyo’s records. This step will ensure that everyone is enrolled in the right coverages, and that your future demographic and enrollment changes will be processed quickly and accurately.

Unlike many other solutions, Noyo uses unique IDs for member changes, which allows us to process changes to any member attribute, for any carrier. For instance, other systems might use SSN as an identifier, which prevents any SSN changes. With Noyo, it's possible to request SSN changes for multiple carriers with a single standard request.

There are two options for linking our member data to your system: you can use either a custom_individual_id (also called a custom ID), or a Noyo ID.

The Noyo id is a member identifier defined by Noyo, and is assigned to each member when their record is created. All members have an id.

The custom_individual_id is another unique identifier, but it is defined by you. With custom IDs, you can use the Noyo system without needing to store any new Noyo-specific member IDs. Instead, you can just use the existing IDs you already store. Custom IDs can be assigned to existing members or used to create new members.

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Members do not have a custom ID until you assign one.

Note that all custom_individual_id values should be unique within each group and fixed so that they will not change over time (such as a UUID). Social security numbers should not be used as custom identifiers.

Option 1 - Linking members automatically using custom IDs

To populate the Noyo system with your custom IDs, you can use Noyo’s automatic member linking feature, which works for all snapshots where the enable_member_auto_link flag is set to true. This feature automatically links new custom IDs to existing members based on demographic details.

When a snapshot is sent to Noyo with a new custom ID, Noyo searches for that member using a combination of Name, DOB, and SSN. If there is a match, Noyo saves the custom ID to that member. Any future snapshots containing that custom ID will automatically be associated with the linked member.

Because it’s likely that your records and the carrier’s records won’t have the exact same data, Noyo’s search algorithm is flexible and does not require strict matching of all demographic information in order to assign a custom ID and create a link. For example, if you have a member’s name as “Jimmy” but it is “James” in our records, we will still match the member as long as the DOB and SSN are the same. If a match is not found, Noyo creates a new member record.

For anyone with a custom ID, member data can be retrieved using only the custom ID.

Option 2 - Linking members using Noyo IDs

Whenever the enable_member_auto_link flag is set to false, Noyo won’t attempt to link members. This might be used in cases where you prefer to do your own matching. Any snapshots containing an existing custom ID will still be applied to the correct member, but any snapshots containing a new custom ID will result in a new member being created.

If you do not wish to use custom IDs or Noyo’s matching functionality, you can use the Noyo ID in all requests. The Noyo ID supersedes the custom ID, and will always be used when present in a snapshot. Any snapshot containing a Noyo ID will be rejected if the provided Noyo ID does not exist.

There are two strategies for finding and saving Noyo IDs:

1. You can attempt to match one member at a time. Use a query parameter to filter employee list results by a combination of the name and date_of_birth fields. The name field should receive a whitespace-separated combination of a first name, middle name, last name, and suffix, depending on what you have. For example, ?name=Peggy%20C%20Johnson. This will be more flexible than searching by those fields independently. If multiple employees are returned, you can then compare on a data point like SSN (if available from the carrier) to pick the right employee.
2. You can paginate through the group employees API endpoint to retrieve a complete census of the group, then write your own algorithm to compare it with your own group census. In either case, we suggest you match at the employee level first, then compare and link each dependent under those matched employees.

Auditing linked members

After completing member linking, the next step is to review and compare your own data to each member’s coverage status at the carrier. This ensures that the carrier has the right data and that there are no discrepancies that could result in rejected requests or customer escalations down the line.

You can use each Noyo member ID to pull a list of coverages using our Individual Enrollment endpoints. Each individual enrollment record in the response will include an individual_id, individual_type, line_of_coverage, and plan_id. Together, these values give you the member and plan in Noyo, which you can then relate back to your own coverage records. Noyo also returns an effective start and effective end date when the coverage is active, and other important details like volume amounts and COBRA status.

You can use all of this information to audit coverages and ensure that members have the right status with the carrier before you begin sending changes. Thanks to our Sync technology–which gives us a direct view of the carrier’s data–you’ll be able to identify and resolve coverage issues quickly and easily. You no longer have to rely on inconsistent reports from the carrier, complex EDI error files, or member escalations to know when something’s gone wrong.

Here are some examples of this in practice:

• If your system has an active coverage that Noyo can’t find at the carrier, it could mean that a member’s enrollment was never processed by the carrier. That member may not be covered when they go to the doctor.
• If the carrier has an active coverage that’s not in your system, it could mean that a member is accidentally enrolled in coverage they didn’t choose and the company is being inaccurately billed (and the employee’s deductions are wrong, too). Or the enrollment may be correct and the member doesn’t realize they have access to these extra benefits.