Press Release

First Dollar Launches Benefit Builder to Transform How Administrators Design and Offer Benefits

Issued by First Dollar

Aug. 3, 2023

AUSTIN, Texas -- First Dollar, a technology company that provides infrastructure for health spending benefits, announced the release of its Benefit Builder today. Benefit Builder unlocks the power of First Dollar's Health Wallet platform by equipping benefit plan designers with an easy-to-use tool for quickly customizing and offering health spending benefits -- FSAs, HRAs, HSAs, LSAs, supplementals, rewards, and more.

First Dollar's use of software to design benefit plans highlights the decoupling of card issuance. The legacy attachment of cards to benefits has resulted in benefit plan updates being tied to high costs, environmental waste, member confusion, and unnecessary barriers. With its software-defined benefits, Benefit Builder allows partners to quickly and efficiently make needed updates without reissuing cards.

Benefit Builder offers improved efficiency and agency in part through its industry introduction of benefit templates. With a few clicks, benefit plan designers can:

• Design custom benefit plans by configuring an existing template. This flexibility enables plan designers to quickly expand their benefit offering portfolio as they can offer conceivably infinite designs of a health spending benefit.
• Book and enroll employer groups by assigning organizations to a template. For administrators and sales teams, this agency enables selling and implementing employers faster with less runaround.

Most other platform technology providers rely on partners sending emails or filing service request tickets for a queue to change benefit designs. In contrast, Benefit Builder enables teams to independently design, launch, and offer the benefits their sales team has sold.

"We're introducing benefit templates to help our partners quickly design, issue, and renew their benefit programs," said First Dollar Senior Designer Gabby Staton. "With templates, administrators can create custom plans without re-issuing cards or filing a ticket. That's just one more way we're giving administrators and plan designers the self-service tools they need."

Benefit plan design and implementation have traditionally been painful processes that required filing multiple tickets to a third party. With Benefit Builder, plan designers have the flexibility and agency to design custom benefit plans and assign them to prospective clients, simplifying the process of booking and enrolling new employer groups. Today, a benefit plan designer can log in to the Benefit Builder and design 64 unique health spending benefit programs before lunch:

• A general health FSA program for 25 employers whose commitment to reducing the use of plastics means they only want virtual cards.
• A limited-purpose FSA program for 11 employers who have found that a carryover is more valuable to their employees than a grace period.
• A dependent care FSA for 13 employers with 13 unique plan periods.
• A wellness program (LSA) for 15 employers that allows for member spending at fitness centers with a 30-day grace period.

As is the case for all accounts powered on the Health Wallet platform, all designed benefits can be offered on a single app, single card.

"Delayed timelines frustrate employers, administrators, and the members who depend on these benefits," said Erin Barley, Senior Product Manager at First Dollar. "We want to simplify offering and using health spending benefits, and Benefit Builder helps us meet that mission with a simplified process for creating new benefit offerings."

About First Dollar: First Dollar is a technology company that provides infrastructure for health spending benefits. We offer a suite of software tools and APIs that enable organizations to launch and manage pre-tax accounts, lifestyle benefits, rewards programs, and supplemental benefits. First Dollar's Benefit Suite includes the Health Wallet for consumers, Health Wallet Manager for administrators, and the Health Wallet Platform for partners. First Dollar is based in Austin, with teammates all over the United States.

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