Ada-based Next Generation Enrollment Inc. expects to hire up to 10 more workers

Sharon Hanks

A growing Ada-based company serving as a third-party administer of employee healthcare benefits for small- to medium-sized companies expects to bring on board up to 10 more workers within 12 months after hiring nine new employees this year alone.

Bradley Taylor, CEO of Next Generation Enrollment, Inc., says the company he founded in 2004 now employs 27 workers at its headquarters and main call center at 455 Pettis Ave. and three more workers at small call centers in Lansing, Detroit and the Washington, D.C. area. In 2008, the company employed about a dozen people.

"We're looking for people to fill roles from entry-level to senior management," says Taylor. He also expects to bring on board at least one software specialist, since programming is now outsourced to an Arbor company.

Key to the growth has been company's NGen software, a powerful, custom-designed Web-based software package that allows his company to manage the multitude of intricate details, requirements, and forms associated with the complicated health care insurance industry that now can overwhelm human resources departments.

The East Grand Rapids native says he saw opportunities in the industry after working at Unum Insurance Co. for six years following college graduation. His job was selling insurance products to insurance brokers who would in turn offer them to their clients.

Next Generation Enrollment offers companies administrative services with eligibility management, open insurance enrollment, terminations, benefits orientation, COBRA, flexible spending accounts, health care reimbursement and related services. Taylor says these tasks can consume as much as 85 percent of a human resources department's time that could otherwise be devoted to more strategic initiatives, such as employee policy development, hiring, training, turnover reduction and other personnel issues.

A growing service at Next Generation Enrollment is dependent eligibility audits which ensures employees' dependents meet requirements to be covered with health and other insurance benefits. Results show nearly 7 percent of dependents receiving benefits from a company are not entitled to them, he reports.

Source: Bradley Taylor, CEO and founder of Next Generation Enrollment, Inc., Ada

Sharon Hanks is innovations and jobs news editor at Rapid Growth Media. Please send story ideas and comments for the column to Sharon at [email protected]. She also is owner of The Write Words in Grand Rapids.