During RISE National 2024, Healthmine presented several strategies for creating lasting change in member behaviors by rethinking how outreach, data and rewards impact the member journey. From reducing duplicate communications to tracking member activities in real time, panelists provided examples of where health plans can improve engagement through a blend of data and behavioral science.
Dig into four key takeaways from the discussion and discover tactics for providing a more effective, coordinated member journey that reinforces healthy behaviors.
1. Coordinate Outreach Around Critical Moments
Members are inundated with messages from health plans, providers, pharmacies and vendors to address specific health outcomes. To avoid overwhelming members, panelists encouraged plans to prioritize important moments in member journeys over individual quality measures when conducting outreach.
By consolidating disparate messages into logical topics, plans can equip members with relevant information and resources at the appropriate point in their lives to have a long-term impact on behaviors. This also enables departments to work together to coordinate outreach around top priorities and ensure members receive the right messages at the right time to achieve goals.
For example, nudging members with several messages over 90 days to complete multiple different activities can increase abrasion and reduce response rates. Instead, outreach should be consolidated and coordinated through 30-, 60- and 90-day check-ins that cover similar topics. Earlier check-ins can prioritize immediate goals while later outreach can be used for lower priority issues.
This holistic approach cuts back on costly, duplicative outreach from different health plan departments and vendors while providing important information and resources when members need them most.
2. Close Data Gaps in Member Records
Coordinating outreach requires a clear understanding of where members are in their healthcare journeys to ensure every message provides the right motivation and is delivered at the right time. Consolidating data into longitudinal member records allows plans to quickly see all member activity, including:
- Care gaps closed
- Campaign metrics
- Survey completions
- Mobile app and member portal usage
- Rewards earned and redeemed
To achieve this level of insight, plans should start by closing critical engagement data gaps like communication preferences and updated contact information. Addressing these immediate challenges increases the effectiveness of survey tools, including health risk assessments, pulse surveys and member experience check-ins, and supports the development of longitudinal member records.
3. Use Personas to Guide Outreach
Closing data gaps and building whole-person views of members sets the stage for more personalized, data-driven outreach. Panelists suggested using behavioral science principles to align engagement and data to drive desired behaviors.
One behavioral technique discussed involves using personas to scale personalization to different populations. Segmenting members into personas based on how they respond to outreach is a simple way to use member data to guide engagement.
For example, some members want to feel heard by their health plan and are more likely to complete surveys if it will help them get the right care. However, others may want the sense of accomplishment for completing an important activity. Adjusting content and design elements to what motivates individuals creates sustainable engagement campaigns that continuously move members in the right direction.
4. Motivate Members with Points
Lastly, the panel discussed the benefits of points-based reward programs for changing member behaviors and controlling costs.
With a traditional dollar-based methodology, rewards create a transactional relationship between plans and members where every healthy activity is viewed as an exchange. This may have a short-term effect on health outcomes, but it is harder to sustain over longer period without higher investments, especially for complex conditions.
However, points encourage members to continuously engage with a program. Members may log in to a program to track their progress, explore different methods of earning rewards and make game plans to complete activities. This type of active engagement moves members from a transactional relationship with their healthcare to conscious improvements in behaviors.
In addition, plans gain greater control over how rewards budgets are used. Rather than rewarding each member with $25 every time they close a care gap, plans can use points to encourage members to complete multiple activities and earn a similar dollar value.
Build a Comprehensive Behavioral Modification Strategy
Through a combination of real-time analytics, omnichannel outreach and behavioral science, health plans can transform how members improve health outcomes. Unfortunately, building out these tools and processes is extremely time-consuming and costly without the support of the right engagement partner.
From Healthmine’s Quality Relationship ManagementTM (QRMTM) platform, plans can eliminate the lag time and complex processes that hinder coordinated, data-driven engagement. QRM equips teams with a single system for managing all member outreach, data and activities to help them focus on immediate priorities. With the additional support of behavioral scientists and engagement strategies, plans can quickly determine the best channels, tactics and tools for improving behaviors across member populations.
Access a comprehensive platform for making the most of every member interaction and driving meaningful change in behaviors. Reach out to us for a demo.
Healthmine is the leading member engagement and rewards solution focused on empowering people to take the right actions to improve their health.