Computer Problems at oxford Health Plan But Oxford Health Plans was a successful HMo and a stock market favorite. was recently the company stock plunged almost 75 percent in a few days. major reason designed ngowst s with its computer information system how it ves managed it Oxford is one of the largest the United States. The company started to plan its computerized system when it had only 217,000 members. However, the system was completed three later here were 1.5 million members. years system was outdated by the time it was completed. For example, processing a signup minutes instead of the planned 6 seconds. continued to sign up new members office was unable the process the applications. made it What happened into an inflexible design, whic project difficult to quickly adjust to subsequent technological improvements as the moved forward. Moreover, Oxford tried to convert the bulk of its membership-billing database to a new system in one sweeping conversion. This proved to be too difficult. They should have used some kind of prototyping, according to experts (e.g., put the small customers on the new system and see how it goes). On top of this Oxford's old software was riddled with seemingly innocuous errors in member records. This created an enormous problem in the new system The new software is very unforgiving. "If you don't get it right, you don't get it in said Seth Leffetto, Oxford's IT manager. So, when the program detected a single mistake, for example, in a 1000-member accoun it kicked out the entire group --delaying billing for all members by weeks, or even months. Attempts to fix the problem with the database vendor took months. Oxford had no backup system. As a result there were many delays and customers received flawed invoices. By the time Oxford started up to pay and others said they had customers for the first time in months, many refused long ago. later, had to uncorrectable bills and admitted it had overestimated its membership by 30,000