VBA and the cost of waiting

In 2010, J.P. Farley had a problem that would make most salespeople wince. The benefits administrator was pursuing a large client, but its existing software could not accommodate the business. Growth depended on expensive IT work to bridge gaps in functionality. The customer was within reach. The machinery was in the way.

That episode appears in a case study published on J.P. Farley’s own website. It explains the appeal of VBA more clearly than a catalogue of features could. For a third-party administrator, or TPA, software determines which promises the business can afford to make. A complicated benefit design can become a competitive advantage, provided the system can actually administer it.

VBA sells that underlying machinery: cloud-based claims and benefits administration, portals, analytics, communications and connections between systems. Its buyers are health plans, TPAs and ancillary insurers. The people ultimately affected are members and providers who would quite reasonably prefer never to think about any of this.

One claim. Several kinds of waiting.

Consider what a claim asks an administrator to know. Is the person enrolled? Which benefits apply? What rate has the provider agreed to accept? Does an authorization exist? Has a deductible been met? VBA’s core product, VBASoftware, brings plan configuration, enrollment, provider records, billing, reinsurance and claims processing into the same operational system.

The distinction matters because healthcare administration has several clocks. There is the time spent calculating an answer. There is the time spent moving information between organizations. Then there is the time somebody spends asking whether anything has happened. Faster calculation helps only one clock.

VBA’s suite follows the others. VBAGateway gives members, providers, employers and brokers different portal experiences. Providers can check eligibility and claim status; employers can manage enrollment and premium invoices. VBAMobile extends the portal experience to an app. VBAnalytics helps payers investigate utilization, costs and population risk. VBAPI lets technical teams connect those functions to outside systems.

Sixty thousand reasons to change the engine

VBA’s technical history contains a useful change of mind. Renting computing capacity had helped a small company expand without buying servers. Later, its engineers wanted a different architecture for claims adjudication. In an AWS account of the project, architect Matt Salerno describes starting with customer problems through a Working Backwards workshop.

The resulting engine used event-triggered serverless computing and parallel processing. AWS reported that testing processed queues of 60,000 claims in minutes rather than hours. That is a test result, not a guarantee for every payer’s workload. The economic attraction was equally specific: computing charges tied to execution rather than dedicated capacity sitting idle.

“Total cost of ownership was super important to us,” Salerno said. The lesson travels beyond insurance: define the delay customers experience before choosing the architecture that removes it.

The phone call is part of the product

At Allegeant, another TPA, the bottleneck was also conversational. Providers needed eligibility, benefit and claim information outside office hours. During the day, straightforward questions competed with complicated problems for the attention of customer service staff. Allegeant already used VBA’s claims software and portal when it implemented VBAVoice in 2020.

The published case study reports that the voice system completely resolved 55% of provider calls, with estimated annual savings of $50,000. A revealing operational detail sits beneath the headline: providers had to obtain a confirmation number from the automated system before speaking with a representative. Adoption was built into the workflow.

That offers something a reader can copy. Make a self-service route part of how work gets done, measure which requests it completes, and preserve a path to a person. Allegeant’s result also depends on its configuration and call mix. A complex dispute and a routine status inquiry deserve different treatment.

A fax can still outrun your cloud

In July 2026, VBA announced a Goodbill partnership focused on retrieving medical records and itemized bills. For claims needing more documentation, the integration initiates provider outreach, follows up through calls, faxes and portals, and returns the documents to the claim. Even modern administration has to meet the fax machine where it lives.

Goodbill reports up to 30% faster retrieval and approximately 30 minutes less administrative work per claim. Those are vendor-reported outcomes. Retrieval fees pass through to the health plan as claim fees, according to the announcement. The arrangement makes the cost allocation concrete, even though it does not supply a dollar price.

The partnership is an admission that automation has boundaries. A claim may be perfectly legible to the processing engine and still lack the evidence needed for review. Connecting retrieval to the claim helps address that separate problem. It also gives administrators a place to track work that otherwise spills into calls and follow-ups.

Connections also shape VBA’s commercial pitch. Its preferred-partner program advertises no integration fees for those partners. The network includes payment, repricing, transparency and workflow services. Buyers still need to examine each service’s charges and scope; an integration fee is only one line in an operating budget.

The business behind the back office

VBA’s model is business-to-business SaaS, with products that can stand alone or operate together, plus implementation and support. It competes in core administration with offerings such as Cognizant’s TriZetto Facets and QNXT and HealthEdge’s HealthRules Edge. VBA’s case rests on configurable benefits administration and connected operations. Cloud delivery alone offers little distinction in this market.

In August 2023, a $156 million majority growth equity transaction led by Spectrum Equity, with Arthur Ventures participating, backed the business. That figure describes the transaction; it is not a subscription price or a published company valuation. In February 2026, Daniel Laroue became CEO, succeeding Mike Clayton, who moved into a senior advisor role.

The company’s expertise grew close to the work. Rich Pierce joined predecessor sister company KeyLink Solutions in 2001 and completed the next-generation VBASoftware in 2009, becoming a partner and owner. Its employment materials now advertise remote opportunities, paid volunteering and time off when employees need it. There is a human organization maintaining this supposedly invisible machinery.

The buyer’s useful question is where work stops today. J.P. Farley’s case study describes restrictions and customization costs before the switch, followed by automation across departments. That suggests a practical evaluation: bring a difficult plan, a problematic data feed and an exception-heavy claim to a demonstration. Test the handoffs as carefully as the screens. A faster engine cannot supply a missing record, fix a badly configured benefit or settle a disputed payment on its own.

Test the handoffs as carefully as the screens.THE BUYER’S FIELD TEST