Timely tips to enhance member engagement

Are you looking for ways to increase member engagement? Emerging from the pandemic, we must shift the engagement approach. To get you started, we summarized some of the most valuable tips recapped from the WellTok webinar: Do This, Not That to Level Up Member Engagement featuring Chris Miller, Director of Customer Engagement Marketing at AllWays Health Partners.

At AllWays Health Partners, we are committed to ensuring our members have access to the care they need—and that starts with engagement. Partnering with WellTok has helped us remove care barriers while actively leveraging community input to make insurance work better. Addressing the needs of customers' key focuses leads to better member experiences. Putting a member first means finding ways to connect with them when and where they are. Digital continues to be a driver in consumer experiences, and the pandemic only amplified this need, pushing businesses to accelerate their digital communication strategy.

Invest in digital

Last March, enrollment fairs stopped, so meeting employers and going out into the community was no longer an option. At AllWays Health Partners, we had been building towards more digital enrollment, but the pandemic pushed us further. Chris added, "One of the things that we did was create a digital enrollment kit we could use with our broker partners, employer partners, and consumers. This outlined their specific coverage and what their choices were, supplemented with webinars." Online webinars turned out to be a thriving environment for our community that increased questions and conversation. People could engage from the comfort of their homes, motivating our continued investment in digital.

At AllWays Health Partners, we ask our member community how they want to communicate with us, and those insights influence how we engage our members. Chris added, "For example, I remember members informed us they like to hear from us primarily through email, followed by SMS text, and then followed by automated voice outreach. So that's a baseline that we operate from understanding that we need to adjust based on the data that we have on the audiences in our lines of business."

Onboarding is critical to customer satisfaction

Many think that the day that a member is effective in the system is the day coverage starts. But if you look at a member's journey, it begins long before that—so the onboarding process is critical to member satisfaction and loyalty.

At AllWays Health Partners, our onboarding plans cater to the populations we serve, utilizing the channels they prefer. Chris explained, "For My Care Family, which is our Medicaid ACO, we primarily use IVR outreach as our first welcome because we have orientation requirements to deliver certain information. The best way to deliver that information we found working with our community and Welltok was through an audio script. During those conversations, we collect other information such as email and cell phone to inform our future communication. Whereas our commercial membership follows the cadence of email, text, and then IVR depending on the data."

Loyalty programs increase engagement

Another way to increase engagement is through loyalty programs for employers and customers. At AllWays Health Partners, we designed a loyalty program that gave members health-related benefits at particular thresholds. For example, if a member is in their 25th month of being a customer with us, that triggers outbound communications informing reward eligibility; this could be a pair of new balance sneakers, fresh meals, or sunscreen. Members can view and select these rewards on our portal. We work through outbound member engagement, ideally through the channels they want, and through the employer to make sure people take advantage of it. These rewards focus on members' needs outside of a clinical setting. With so many isolated throughout the last 14 months, engaging members also supports their overall well-being.

Employers and providers, here's what we've learned about engaging members in their health

Supported by our engagement efforts, we work with our partners at Mass General Brigham to improve the value and experience for members—and providers, saving money and time while still delivering high-quality care. This is what generated our Allies HMO and Allies Choice HMO plans. Chris described, "We started with Newton-Wellesley Hospital, which is the highest-rated hospital in Massachusetts by US News and World Report. We used that as the center of our offerings so these members can choose a PCP affiliated with Newton- Wellesley Hospital. If you want to get your care virtually, there's a practice for that right in Wellesley, supported by patient navigators who serve as a bridge between coverage and care. If you need appointments with a specialist, such as gastroenterology, cardiology, or dermatology—our patient navigators help you get quick access to those specialties quickly. This plan gives members a digital experience and local care, but it also happens to be much more affordable with a lower premium and out-of-pocket costs. It's a good choice for people that live within a 20-mile radius of Newton-Wellesley Hospital. There is a full digital enrollment process that helps consumers make a choice that's right for them." These solutions continue to shift in alignment with our members' needs.

To learn more from Chris and how to step up member engagement, watch the complete webinar replay.