Medicare Advantage Customers Want More Personalization

We are all consumers and so we often think of personalization in terms of a retail experience, like Amazon prompting us for relevant products or the remarketing ads displayed to us as we traverse the web. But consumers want personalization applied to other spheres in their lives. For example, a recent Harris Poll of over 1,200 Medicare subscribers revealed high levels of member satisfaction with their Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans. But it also revealed a desire for personalization, with 86% of subscribers saying they wanted their plan to make communications and services more personalized.

That corresponds with a survey by HealthMine which found that 40% of Medicare Advantage members think their plan’s communications are generic and impersonal. In fact, 25% of the Medicare Advantage subscribers surveyed actually changed their health plan providers. That’s unfortunate because personalized healthcare communications are a critical way to maintain member satisfaction. Health insurance providers can use personalization to improve member satisfaction and reduce attrition by creating an outstanding customer experience.

The desire for personalization isn’t limited to Medicare Advantage subscribers. And health insurers have large volumes of member data on hand, data that can be used to understand individual members and deliver personalized communications on health risks, hospital claims, prescriptions and more. But this requires working around challenges like disconnected data, high call volumes and legacy systems.

Omnichannel approaches to customer engagement are used across many industries but haven’t been used enough to deliver value to health plan members. Omnichannel can reach members where they tend to be, rather than using a broad and costly campaign. For example, text messaging or direct messaging on social media can be used for younger members, while calls or direct mail can be used for members who aren’t as technologically sophisticated. Surveys are another way to acquire feedback for evolving personalization. Because they are proactive, healthcare insurance providers can resolve issues and personalize the experience before complaints come in.

Patients’ experiences with healthcare tend to be low. Often visits to the doctor seem impersonal, with more time spent on data entry than one-on-one with the provider. While text messages or patient portals can’t do the heavy lifting of fixing the complex issues of health care delivery, they can help to reduce the friction of many interactions.

Oceanus, from DataOceans is a customer engagement platform that centralizes data, streamlines operations, and delivers omnichannel communications for health insurance payors. Oceanus helps healthcare payors deliver the personalization members want while consolidating communication and business processes in one streamlined platform. Request a demo with a product expert to learn more about Oceanus today.