Silverlink_SolvingCommChallenge_research_brief_FINAL
- 1. Solving the Communications Challenge Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward RESEARCH BRIEF Joel Radford, SVP, Software Solutions Silverlink Communications
- 2. About Silverlink Silverlink is the proven leader in multi-channel engagement management solutions for healthcare organizations. Our solutions enable health plans and other key stakeholders to engage and support their members in smarter and more effective ways, empowering consumers to make the best decisions about their healthcare. We deliver better control, coordination and effectiveness in member communications to promote healthy and loyal behaviors. To learn more about what makes Silverlink the leader in consumer health engagement, please visit www.silverlink.com, email info@silverlink.com, or call 1-781-425-5700. ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Proprietary property.All rights reserved.
- 3. ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward | 1 The Challenge Health plans are busy trying to navigate through a sea of changes taking place in the industry. And they are juggling multiple priorities simultaneously while trying to build brand, trust, and loyalty with their members across a great number of predominantly independent interaction strategies—marketing, administrative, and health-related, to name a few. With the best of intentions, health plans may find themselves unintentionally alienating their members, increasing their own administrative costs, and, in some cases, deterring their members from receiving care. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which are competing priorities between departments. This situation is untenable in the long run. Health plans must improve the consistency of their interactions with members if they expect to achieve growth, medical cost reduction, and improved outcomes. Why It’s Hard Industry pundits have been highlighting these challenges for years. So why haven’t they been resolved? Because it’s difficult, and here’s why: Healthcare is Different Management of consumer interactions is more complicated in healthcare than perhaps in any other industry because: 1. Healthcare payers participate in a pure services business, and it’s a complex one. Unlike Starbucks, or Amazon, services are not accompanied by an exchange of physical goods. In exchange for payment, an insurer delivers reduction in financial risk. So the consumer only experiences tangibility associated with the service in the form of interactions—voice and tone of an agent; packaging of a letter; the visual design of an email. The importance of these subtleties is magnified as compared to more traditional services business. 2. Further, those interactions which might be characterized as “moments of truth” in many cases can be more deeply personal in the healthcare industry than in any other—consider a mother’s reaction to the need for “prior auth” when her child is in need of a specialty medication.
- 4. 2 | Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. 3. The industry is highly regulated. We are limited in what we can say, how we can say it, when we can say it, to whom we can say it, and the channel we can use. 4. Lastly, payer business models are changing, shifting from a largely B2B model to an increasingly important B2C model, and even a B2B2C model which implies new processes, new people, and new technologies So what does all of this mean? Proven methods, processes, and technologies from other industries, while useful, are insufficient. Our interaction techniques must be different. Our compliance processes must be different. Healthcare payers can’t simply copy best practices from other industries, so in a way, we need to invent our own. Financial Pressure In the midst of all of these changes, payers are also under significant financial pressure. The risk profile of memberships is shifting. Merger and acquisition activity is driving changes in strategy. Various enterprise processes are being reengineered in response to healthcare reform. Internal departments and business units are being combined, and in some cases shut down. It is in this context in which groups responsible for managing consumer interactions are being asked to do more with less, and rarely are these business units experiencing year-over-year increases in their budgets. Commitment to Technology If health plans are to succeed in winning consumer loyalty, they will need to make a significant commitment to technology. And technology can be difficult to understand, especially with limited IT support. Groups responsible for consumer interaction must account for scale, cost, complexity, legacy investments, and compliance. Worse, different departments have conflicting priorities which can hamper broad adoption of standard technologies. At an average cost of $80-120 per member, and 4-6 years to complete, a broad scale system implementation can range into the hundreds of millions of dollars. – Deloitte “Navigating the Landscape of Health Plan Core Administrative Systems”
- 5. ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward | 3 Health Plan Priorities Over a 10 month period, we interviewed more than 70 healthcare executives representing 41 healthcare organizations in an effort to learn which consumer interaction management strategies were their highest priorities. At a high level we found that everyone we interviewed is focused in some way on improving the quality of their member interactions. Some are more process-focused, while others are more technology- focused. Some are more focused on measuring and improving member satisfaction, while others are more interested in allocating their investments where they would have the most impact. Some initiatives are being driven by IT organizations, but most are being driven by business users who have direct responsibility for managing consumer interactions. Marketing 36% Clinical Operations 32% Consumer Experience 19% IT 13% Job Functions Health Plan 70% PBM 20% Wellness 10% Health Care Enterprise Types The Interview Our research polled healthcare executives across several different types of enterprises, and a variety of organizational roles. 63% 63% 48% 45% 43% 40% 33% 33% 20% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Preferences DNC Multichannel Coordination Analysis and Scoring List Enhancement Communications Overlap Intensity 360 Degree View Transparency Enterprise Marketing Automation Enterprise Data Warehouse Technology-Related Priorities to Drive Engagement Enterprise View Consolidated view of organizational priorities.
- 6. 4 | Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. The problem is that although respondents indicated they are pursuing or intend to pursue technology-related priorities intended to drive improved engagement, the level of importance of each initiative varies depending on individual departmental goals. With so many competing priorities, it’s imperative that leadership step in and drive an increased focus on applying technology to monitor and manage communications across the enterprise. Below are examples of the top four technology related priorities to drive engagement with marketing, clinical, and Consumer Experience Office (CXO) departments. As you can see, “preferences” is naturally more of a priority for the marketing department than it is for the CXO, for example. Instead, the CXO is more concerned about “overlap intensity.” So how can a healthcare organization manage all of these priorities while simultaneously delivering a positive member experience? 75% 63% 33% 29% 25% 29% 25% 42% 21% 59% 64% 59% 41% 50% 55% 45% 23% 18% 67% 67% 75% 75% 83% 67% 58% 50% 50% 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Preferences DNS Multichannel Coordination Analysis Scoring List Enhancement Communications Overlap Intensity 360 Degree View Transparency Enterprise Marketing Automation Enterprise Data Warehouse Marketing Clinical Consumer Experience Office Competing Priorities Not all are prioritized equally across the organization. Communications Overlap Intensity CXO 83% Clinical 50% Marketing 25% Analysis Scoring CXO 75% Clinical 59% Marketing 33% 360 Degree View CXO 67% Clinical 55% Marketing 29% Preferences CXO 67% Clinical 59% Marketing 75%
- 7. ©2015 Silverlink Communications, Inc. Solving The Communications Challenge: Trends, Common Challenges, and The Path Forward | 5 Our Solution to the Challenge Collecting the data represented in the charts above has helped shape our software solution strategy at Silverlink. In fact, our recent release of EngageME 2.0 is helping some enterprises address many of the priorities highlighted in this chart. Our solution is a SaaS (software as a service)-based solution that integrates and stores communications history, preferences, and compliance information from multiple data sources into a single member engagement profile, including the results of outreaches generated both in-house and via external vendors. EngageME 2.0 was designed specifically for the healthcare industry and for use by multiple communicators within an organization. In addition to providing valuable insights to inform member engagement strategies and interactions, EngageME 2.0 also helps healthcare organizations: • Improve member experience: Regulate communications intensity, drive message consistency and respect member preferences. • Reduce administrative cost: Suppress and combine redundant or unnecessary communications and reduce inbound call center traffic. • Improve medical outcomes: Improve yield associated with health engagement programs. Health plans need to take a more customer-centric approach and keep their members engaged through regular communications ... When members perceive their plan as a trusted health partner, there is a positive impact on loyalty and advocacy. —J.D. Power’s “2015 Member Health Plan Study”