In 2015, U.S. Medicare beneficiary population was estimated to be 55.5 million individuals, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).
By 2030, this population is expected to exceed 69 million; in 2050, the population is estimated to grow by almost 50% to 82 million individuals according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It comes as no surprise that Medicare Managed Care enrollment is at all time high of 34%, and, with an estimated 10,000 baby boomers aging into Medicare daily, enrollment for Medicare will continue to rise. Consequently, health plans are under pressure to maximize the growth of their Medicare products. However, they often face difficulty capturing new beneficiaries and retaining existing members as limited marketing budgets become an obstacle. The key to facing this challenge successfully lies in a plan’s ability to increase marketing efficacy, while ensuring member retention.
● Focus on education: To bring Americans into the Medicare Managed Care space, Americans must first understand the differences between managed care insurance models and more traditional, employer-based and legacy offerings. Educate the consumer on the upside of working with a managed care organization, such as extra benefits, like dental and vision care, the ability to set deductibles and copays, an out of pocket limit and international coverage.
● Create a retention plan: According to KFF, an estimated 9% of Medicare Advantage enrollees voluntarily switched plans per year. Member retention is the key to success, as the cost of acquisition is significantly higher than the cost of retention. Ensure retention by maintaining high quality ratings, consumer satisfaction, and access to a wide array of doctors. Offering monthly newsletters that contain useful health tips, investing in design and ease-of-use for online platforms, and using consumer insights derived from current available data will all help drive strategic decisions and communication.
● SAVE: Simplicity, Access, Value, and Excellence are key drivers in health plan choices, and consumers are becoming more informed about their options. Offering high quality solutions, ensuring value by providing fair costs, great customer service, and convenient access points are necessary to not only retain current members, but also engaging non-members. Focusing on these internal attributes can help plans save costs and resources, which can be utilized to maintain high quality ratings.
● Know your reach and top metrics: Medicare Open Enrollment marketing programs should focus on results like form submissions, higher lead volume and lower cost per acquisition (CPA). The best way to educate future members and retain current ones is to employ successful marketing strategies and tactics with proven results reaching new members where they are. Digital media consumption has increased tremendously, especially with older Americans. Not only has digital media consumption surpassed that of traditional methods, but also, mobile accounts for 65% of all digital media consumed according to comScore. This is important to note, as 80% of Americans over the age of 65 have a cell phone. In fact, 82% of this population reports having a Facebook account, with 15% spending over 11 hours a week on the social media site according to research from DMN3. This trend suggests an efficient and convenient way to reach this target audience.
● According to Nielsen, Medicare Open Enrollment target audiences spend around 6 hours per day with their phone (including email and social) versus just 3 minutes per day dealing with traditional, hard copy mail. If form submissions, higher lead volumes and lower cost per acquisition are your Medicare Open Enrollment marketing program goals, generating 30 touch points per individual over 30 to 90 days in the well populated digital realm significantly improves the odds of conversion and increasing marketing program ROI. Pro tip: did you know it is possible to find a valid IP address for prospects if you already have a physical street address?
As health plans prepare for the 2018 Medicare Open Enrollment Season, effective, metric-driven, multi-channel digital marketing programs for Medicare Open Enrollment should be capable of increasing lead volume by 10% or more while decreasing CPA by 17%-70% and reducing churn rates by 50% or better.
About the authors:
Reem Odeh is a health plan industry analyst with Pursuant Health. Henry McAlpin is regional vice president with Pursuant Health. Pursuant Health’s purpose mirrors its passion - helping improve consumer health by incentivizing engagement.
- https://www.dmn3.com/dmn3-blog/should-you-market-to-baby-boomers-on-social-media
- https://www.wirelessweek.com/news/2016/03/death-desktop-65-digital-media-consumed-mobile
- http://www.kff.org/report-section/medicare-advantage-plan-switching-exception-or-norm-issue-brief/
- http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/23/2/282.2.full
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.