Surveys Highlight What Members Want From Health Plans

by Leslie Small

 

In recent weeks, rankings and survey results have emerged that seek to answer a timeless question for health insurers: How can plans better serve and engage their members?

More outreach, fewer problems?

• One report comes from a company called Zipari, titled "Members Weigh-In on Consumer Experience, With Some Surprises for Payers."
• "What I found surprising was the different perspectives between the payers and the members," says Zipari CEO Mark Nathan. In particular, he cites the finding that while 73% of payers feel that they reach out frequently to members, only 24% of members share that sentiment.
• While members may not perceive more outreach from payers as a bad thing, Nathan cautions that such messages also need to be well-planned. "It's just a huge opportunity to sequence the messages so that they're personalized for the member," Nathan adds.

Signs of COVID 'halo effect':

• For its annual Verint Experience Index: Health Insurance report, Verint surveyed health plan members about their experiences at the top 25 health insurers. UnitedHealthcare came out on top with a score of 84.1. The average score among the 25 ranked plans was 79.8.
• "If you look at how [health insurers] performed from a customer satisfaction perspective, the category did very well in a very difficult and stressful time for consumers and members," says Eric Head, Verint's vice president of experience leadership, referring to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
• In fact, the pandemic may actually have boosted consumers' approval of their health plans, Head says, adding that the COVID "halo effect" was also evident in other industries.

The value of payer-provider synergy:

• The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) recently released its annual Health Plan Report cards, which rate more than 1,000 plans on a 5-point scale on "the quality of care patients receive, how happy patients are with their care and health plans’ efforts to keep improving."
• Eight commercial plans received a perfect score of 5, and all of them are members of the Alliance of Community Health Plans, a trade group for nonprofit health plans. Ceci Connolly, ACHP's president and CEO, points out that all ACHP members are "provider-aligned," which helps improve care quality because "they have that payer-provider synergy…and collaboration."

From Health Plan Weekly