A 3-Step Guide to the Member Experience of Tomorrow
Step 1-Research, Review, Reveal
Healthcare plan providers are no strangers to creating winning combinations. When you offer services and programs your members actually need and use, healthcare member engagement becomes a natural byproduct. And when members are happy and engaged with your product, long-term loyalty is easier to come by.
A recent J.D. Power report noted that customer satisfaction is directly linked to engagement. However, that same report found that the majority of members feel their health plans lack customer centricity and that their plans do not act in the best interest of members.
To flip the script and start creating a better healthcare member experience, providers must first understand the full picture of the communities they serve. This requires companies to look beyond obvious assumptions like costs and availability of services.
Factors to Consider in Evaluating Member Needs
Health Plan Member Environment
Environments affect health in different ways. There are the obvious environmental health hazards, such as pollution, that may impact everything from risk of disease to life expectancy. And then there are environmental factors such as local crime rates, public safety, availability of transportation, and access to food, among others.
Gaining greater healthcare intelligence requires providers to look closely at individual ecosystems to address environmental factors that affect health in different ways.
Community Support Resources
Knowing what else is available beyond the services of the health plan Community Support Resources can be used to improve the healthcare member experience.
Local resources such as food banks, social services, and charities or nonprofits might affect the supplemental benefits you would need to provide. For example, nutrition counseling might be approached differently in areas with food deserts compared to areas where food access is broader.
Healthcare Access
Rural areas offer a stark contrast to urban developments in the matter of healthcare. Providers must consider whether broad coverage exists, the quality of the network, and other comparisons to ensure member needs are being addressed.
Direct Competitors
A lack of customer loyalty with your company can be beneficial to your competitors. It’s essential to constantly learn so you can build on your strengths. Find out why members leave other companies, why they choose you, and where they feel you can improve the healthcare member experience.
Real Impact on Member Experience Begins with Research
All health plan providers share a common goal: to improve your members’ health beyond the chart by focusing on their quality of life. In this way, you build trust and, in turn, create better experiences.
All of the above factors require deeper healthcare intelligence than what is typically considered when designing plans and supplemental services. Drilling into these new layers allows companies to understand the communities they serve, which leads to the ability to build better products and increase healthcare member engagement.
Insightin Health provides access to healthcare intelligence that makes a real impact. The Insightin Health member engagement platform enables payers to gather and “slice and dice” healthcare data to gain deep insights into their member communities. Contact us today to learn more.
