Key to HIP Health Plan of New York's transformation is the innovative use of technology to improve customer service. During the last year, one of the main focuses of that effort has been the company's presence on the Internet.

This spring, HIP relaunched its Web site, HIPusa.com, with a host of new functions. Members can now, among other things, check their benefits, locate and change providers, check claim status, and refill prescriptions. The site helps businesses work more efficiently as well, since employers can manage accounts within their companies, enroll new hires, request ID cards, and even set up electronic billing and payment.

The time-saving benefits for customers are clear, but the site has also generated significant savings in HIP's administrative expenses--$12 million last year. It costs HIP 75 cents to process a transaction through the E-commerce portal, versus $5 the manual way, says chief technology officer Pedro Villalba.

Going into the project, HIP executives knew that E-commerce was going to become a critical part of its business, but they weren't sure about how to plan for it. They considered outsourcing the task to an outside company, but ultimately decided to do it themselves. "You have to be nimble and quick to be on the Web, so we hired our own internal E-commerce team, former dot-com guys," Villalba says. "I call them my cowboys."

HIP has also had to be innovative in the way it presents its E-commerce strategy to customers. Since the company serves a multicultural community in the New York metropolitan area, it designed the entire site in Spanish as well as English. A Chinese-language version launched Sept. 16.

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