Highlight Health recovers a stalled Dynamics 365 implementation without starting over
Updated: 5 days ago
Highlight Health is an independent healthcare cost containment company that helps self-funded health plans and other healthcare payers review large medical claims and control inappropriate healthcare costs. The company had already invested in a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement environment to support its claims operation. The implementation stalled before the system reflected how claims actually moved through the business.
A fixed-scope assessment helped Highlight Health determine what could be preserved, what needed to change, and how to redirect the project without discarding the usable foundation already in place.
Executive summary
Challenge: The prior Dynamics 365 implementation had become difficult to manage and did not contain a connected claims workflow. Highlight Health described six people on billable calls, missed deliverables, recurring open items, and no usable backlog or user stories.
Approach: Alliason assessed the existing implementation, preserved the parts that were still sound, documented requirements and backlog items, and rebuilt the application around Highlight Health's actual claims process. Alliason also delivered a partner portal in Microsoft Power Pages and later added straightforward sales tracking.
Outcome: Based on the prior partner's six-resource billing model, remaining time to go-live, and estimated time to resolve unresolved issues, Highlight Health avoided an estimated $850,000 in additional fees by changing course. The Power Pages portal also replaced a manual customer-reporting process that had taken staff eight to ten hours per customer report.
The implementation had screens, but no connected workflow
Highlight Health already knew how it handled claims. A claim came in, the team analyzed it, identified cost reduction options, moved it through internal review, and sent the result back out.
The Dynamics 365 build did not reflect that operating process. The prior partner had structured the application around its interpretation of Highlight Health's spreadsheets. The result was a set of separate entities and flat screens that did not connect the claims process from intake through analysis, review, and outbound activity.
Delivery problems increased the cost and uncertainty. Highlight Health described calls with six billable resources, the same open items resurfacing, missed deliverables, and requirements that were not showing up correctly in the build. The company had asked for basic delivery discipline, including agile tracking and user stories, without getting a usable project structure in place.
Leadership faced two expensive possibilities: keep funding the same delivery model, or discard usable Dynamics 365 investment and pay to recreate it. Highlight Health brought Alliason in for a second opinion before committing to either path.
An assessment changed the recovery decision
The engagement began with a fixed-scope assessment of the implementation path, the existing Dynamics 365 build, the business requirements, and the commitments already made.
The assessment identified what should be preserved, what needed to change, and how the project could be recovered without a full reset. The platform had a usable foundation. The claims experience and delivery structure needed to be corrected.
That finding shaped the recovery. Alliason created a documented backlog and defined requirements, then worked directly with the departments involved in the claims process. Requirements came from the people closest to the process rather than being filtered through a single technical contact.
The existing investment stayed in place where it made sense. The claims application was rebuilt around how Highlight Health actually handled claims, and the solution architect documented the system and trained the team to use and support it.
Rebuilding Dynamics 365 around the actual claims process
The recovered application connected the operating steps Highlight Health needed: claim intake, analysis, identification of cost reduction options, internal review, and outbound activity.
Alliason also returned to the original statement of work and accounted for the commitments that were still outstanding. The project moved from disconnected screens and open-ended meetings to a documented backlog, defined requirements, and a claims workflow that the business could use, support, and train against internally.
For Highlight Health, recovery meant keeping the parts of the platform that still had value while changing the parts that prevented the system from supporting the business.
Changing course avoided an estimated $850,000 in additional fees
The financial impact came from stopping the prior delivery pattern before more cost accumulated.
Based on the prior partner's six-resource billing model, projected across the remaining time to go-live plus the estimated time required to resolve issues that remained unaddressed, Highlight Health avoided an estimated $850,000 in additional fees by redirecting the project.
The recovery preserved usable Dynamics 365 investment while removing a delivery model that had become increasingly expensive.
Extending the recovered system with Microsoft Power Pages
Once the claims workflow was stable, Alliason built a partner portal on Microsoft Power Pages, a capability the prior partner had not planned.
Before the portal, Highlight Health staff spent eight to ten hours assembling a report for each customer and emailing it out. The Power Pages portal replaced that manual report assembly and distribution process.
Alliason later added a straightforward way for the sales team to track deals, extending the environment without distracting from the claims process that had driven the recovery.
The recovery held up through a change in technology leadership
A new CTO joined Highlight Health with Alliason already supporting the Dynamics 365 and Power Pages environment. He reviewed the broader technology stack and inherited a project with documentation, training, and knowledge transfer already built into the engagement.
Sam K., CTO, Highlight Health
“Walking in mid-project, I did a full assessment of our tech stack, and what stood out about Alliason was the discipline. They documented everything, went back to the original statement of work, and made sure every commitment was covered.”
That review gave Highlight Health an additional test of the recovered implementation. New technology leadership could assess what had been built, understand the decisions behind it, and continue from a documented system rather than restart the project.
Highlight Health's IT leadership also described a clear change in the delivery relationship:
Alan M., Vice President, IT, Highlight Health
"With Alliason, there was dialogue, problem-solving, and a real working relationship."
What Highlight Health recovered
Highlight Health ended the recovery with a documented claims workflow aligned to how the business operates, a live Power Pages partner portal, a simpler way for sales to track deals, and the documentation and knowledge transfer needed to support the environment.
The project also preserved usable investment that could have been lost in a full restart. The 40-hour assessment gave leadership enough evidence to separate what was worth keeping from what needed to change before approving more implementation spend.
If your Dynamics 365 implementation is stalled, over budget, or losing credibility with leadership, we can help you determine what is worth preserving, what needs to change, and what a credible recovery path looks like.
