Health Plans: Take Consumer Engagement Into Account When Planning For Insurance Exchanges

Additional funding from HHS will support states continuing their efforts to build out their insurance exchange infrastructure.  For health plans, state- and federal-sponsored insurance exchanges represent a strong opportunity to attract and acquire new members. 

As a health plan, you carefully evaluate your public and private insurance exchange strategies relative to market opportunity, mandated coverage and plan design provisions, profitability, and other factors. But how much time do you devote to the user experience? Consumer user experience will play a large role in member retention over the next year.  Currently, much focus in the market is on member attraction and growth relative to products, plan design, branding, and marketing. But it’s equally important to ensure that once you get a consumer via an exchange channel relationship, your health plan is well positioned to gain their loyalty and retain them. As you create your strategies, be sure to include consumer engagement. This process should start with the health plan selection process on the exchange.  You should choose to participate in public or private exchanges that offer a robust plan selection tool – one that’s user friendly and provides enough information to the consumer to clearly differentiate your products and brands.

Additionally, once you’ve acquired new members, it’s very important to offer them robust tools and services to better understand and manage their health.  Ensuring that your exchange strategy not only attracts members — but also retains them — will go a long way toward supporting your overall strategy.

Anita Nair-Hartman

Vice President Market Planning and Strategy