Evolving healthcare consumers starts with adopting a retail mindset.

“Get closer to your customers than ever before. Tell them what they need before they know it themselves. In his quote, Apple founder Steve Jobs is describing the essence of the retail mindset. Imagine the positive impact that building this customer intimacy can have on the healthcare industry. By adopting a consumer-centric approach, the quality of healthcare It will be better positioned to improve, increase satisfaction, eliminate waste, and improve the overall care experience.

A 2020 Healthcare Finance Leaders Survey It has shown that organizations that embrace consumerism and proactively meet member needs are more likely to succeed than entities whose consumerism efforts are reactive. According to the same survey, technology is critical to creating positive user experiences. Respondents who have prioritized access to the right technologies to support consumerism are likely to report greater success around member experience, transparency and engagement.

Based in part on the weighting placed on experience and satisfaction metrics in the CMS Star rating system, health plan leaders are working to influence behavior and outcomes by offering personalized and relevant choices to each member. Consider the impact of serving a highly enhanced member experience – personalized experiences lead to increased engagement; Increasing engagement reduces churn and builds loyalty; Longevity with the health plan increases member awareness and improves quality of care.

Retailers and other consumer-centric organizations are increasing consumer expectations everywhere by providing flexible, efficient and timely services to their customers. Personalized services are becoming table stakes to do the same for health plans. Today, health plans that can deliver a consumer-centric experience to their members will have a competitive advantage over plans that continue with legacy thinking and a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

As health plans adopt a retail mindset and work to deliver consumer-centric experiences to their members, they can look to retailers for inspiration. Additionally, these companies provide a model for success – ensure efficient access to data, learn how to turn that data into information, and use aggregate consumer data to drive action.

A simple connector: integration, not termination.

The healthcare industry is surrounded by data. It is constantly being assembled by people, systems and devices. Despite the abundance of information, the industry faces very real challenges – the systems are not connected, the solutions are not always measurable, the delivery of information can be slow. The usual suspects – reach, timeliness and completeness – got in the way. However, by solving the silent data challenge and developing a holistic understanding of their membership, health plans can implement personalized solutions that were previously impossible.

Building blocks are in place to create a connected data ecosystem in healthcare with the potential to deliver personalized and integrated experiences to members. The shift from a holistic and comprehensive view of members to a continuum of care built around individualized care, allowing health plans to improve member experiences. of CVS Health 2022 Health Care Perceptions Survey “People are looking for their needs [primary care physicians] They are open to learning and understanding their lifestyle choices, personal health goals, family medical history and more, and sharing their health information across all care settings to ensure seamless continuity of care.

Simple insights: personalized, not generic

Taking a holistic view of members allows health plans to address their needs more quickly and make greater use of technology to do so more affordably. Applying predictive analytics, planners can create multiple categories of value from their connected data. Historical data is important to understand what happened while real-time data plans allow you to see what is happening right now. Using both data sets with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, planners can predict what might happen, and then dictate exactly what should happen next using Next Best Action technology.

In practice, linking electronic health record data allows for real-time viewing of scheduled appointments and plans to provide pre-visit assistance such as free transportation and a post-visit survey to collect feedback immediately after an appointment. This gives the plan an opportunity to intervene immediately and correct problems before the next visit.

This same thinking is what retailers use to understand their consumers. Relying on mock surveys to understand member satisfaction can be challenging because they only provide responsive data and require planning to wait months or longer to understand the member experience. By taking inspiration from retailers and enabling real-time data collection, plans can quickly meet member needs and ultimately enhance experiences to increase engagement and satisfaction.

Effective outcomes: transformation, not marketing.

Engaged members are easier to retain, and effective engagement inspires satisfaction, the cure for bad luck. A study of nearly 7 million Medicare Advantage members, 25 percent of whom had not enrolled in the past 18 months, found that engaged members are struggling at a lower rate than the rest of the population.

Using a population-level linked data strategy can help health plans understand where and why their members are struggling. As members leave their plans, it’s critical for health plans to use that historical knowledge to implement strategies to increase participation and improve future satisfaction.

Using connected data in real-time, plans can identify potential members who complain or face social issues and barriers such as food insecurity and loneliness. By leveraging this knowledge, health plans can quickly identify levers to pull to address these root cause issues, prevent churn, and dramatically improve member experience and satisfaction.

Health care consumerism: innovation, not commonplace.

Delivering customer-centric experiences starts with knowing your members. Given the importance of their role in protecting the well-being of their members, health plans must begin implementing strategies and technologies that provide a deeper understanding of member needs, engagement, and satisfaction.