During a panel discussion at last week’s Medicare Marketing & Sales Summit, health plans reflected on the AEP and their growth strategies.
Pictured L-R, Moderator Shannon Decker, Todd Rau, Shannon Drotning, and Michelle Boudreau
Success for this year’s AEP leading into 2025 required being nimble, building trust, and focusing on the human connection, according to Michelle Boudreau, SVP, group client services, MERGE, a full-service marketing, communications advertising agency that works with 18 regional health plans.
She noticed that due to changes in the financial landscape, business goals and strategies for plans moved from growth at any cost to retention and diversification of product lines. “With information coming out of CMS very late, the go-to-market strategies were late so that compressed the timeline so that was a challenge,” Boudreau said. “It also changed the way we needed to think about our engagement, so personalization and the use of data really became ever more important.”
Boudreau said that more members paid attention to the Annual Notice of Change and some disenrolled. “So, the first step in building their trust was using the data that we have, doing plan comparisons. ‘Hey, we know you're in this plan today. These are the key benefits that we know you enjoy. This is where we're moving to you, and this is what you can expect,’” she explained, adding that they then used media channels to drive phone conversations or full attendance at meeting.
Overall, she said, those conversations mitigated any negativity associated with the change. “I’m happy to report that we achieved our retention goals of 89 percent,” she said.
Shannon Drotning, consumer market president, Providence Health Plan, explained that her organization handles all lines of business, including commercial, Medicare Advantage, MedSupp, individual and family plans across Oregon, Washington, and California. Providence Health Plan has 77,000 Medicare Advantage members including those in D-SNP plans.
Providence is part of a highly desired provider system that includes high-quality physicians, she explained. “So, everybody wants to go to Providence, but people were getting disrupted and being canceled out of plans that didn’t have us in their network…So that was a problem in trying to find open PCPs,” Drotning said.
Providence did experience membership growth during the AEP, but like Boudreau, Drotning said the organization is also focused on retention. “As far as our goals, it's retention first and it’s smart growth with an eye on financials. Growth in the right areas,” she said.
Drotning also recommends that plans consider a county-by-county strategy to understand each environment. Think about marketing, sales, brokers, and community events in each community. “We never have enough resources to go everywhere, so where are you most profitable. What counties are most profitable? What counties are serving the right kind of members and align with your mission the most? Just work those countries and have them in priority order so you can always pivot,” she said.
Providence also had success conducting in-person wellness fairs, flu shot clinics, and town halls. “People are ready to come back in person and engage with you,” Drotning said. “We had a big event at the Oregon Science Museum in downtown Portland and our room was overflowing. I think we had over 260 people show up. They were thrilled to be there, and it was just a wonderful event. People had tears in their eyes. They were so happy to come back and engage with health plan.”
Todd Rau, director of sales and client relationships, Indiana University Health Plans, Inc., said the past year was quite challenging. Indeed, the health plan filed a bid to remain flat. “We did not want to grow and so that was kind of interesting when it comes to setting goals and things like that for all of my team members.”
But in August, the plan learned it was being purchased by Elevance Health, the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Indiana, including IU Health Plans Commercial employer-sponsored and Medicare Advantage businesses. That led to a lot of uncertainty, but the plan will be run through the end of this year the way it always has, he explained.
And, he said, the plan grew by 500 because of its relationships with brokers who really like Indiana University Health Plans, particularly its Part B premium reduction. Rau said his team was transparent with brokers about benefit changes. They also developed talking points with their telesales customer service representatives and appeals and grievances, so they understood the changes as well.
Panelists also recommended the following strategies for retention and growth during the upcoming year:
- Think about how you engage members outside of the AEP. Consider extracting information about members for personalized outreach. Let your members know that you know them.
- Analyze data and share it with your call center team so they understand what media channel drove the inbound call as well as the creative unit. Call center representatives should know whether the call is coming from a card member or a new prospect.
- Make sure providers are aware of what plans they accept. Consider putting advertisements in the providers’ offices for staff and also for patients to drive queries.
- Keep your messaging simple. Limit direct mail pieces to a couple of paragraphs–and each paragraph is a few sentences. Consider using images, such as a pair of glasses to illustrate your vision benefit. Postcards can also be effective. Consider establishing a member advisory council and ask them about your communications and how they’d like you to communicate with them.
- One way to communicate to members who are concerned about their changing plans: Plans will change yearly but our service will not. You can always trust us. We will always be here.