When it comes to customer satisfaction, health insurance remains one of the lowest-rated industries.
Convenient customer support, telehealth services, and virtual care are all essential to consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic has made these features even more important. The result? Consumers want to contact their health plans how they want, when they want, and where they want. In today’s competitive landscape, health plans and employers must adapt to these changing needs with innovative offerings.
Why the Member Experience Is So Important
According to recent research, the member experience is connected to important business and clinical outcomes. Patients who experience positive interactions with their providers demonstrate better health outcomes, including improved quality of life and self-management of their conditions.
For example, the patient care experience—especially when it involves communication with providers—strongly connects to medication and treatment plan adherence. This is particularly true for patients with chronic conditions who need to consistently work with their providers to achieve positive outcomes.
On the business side, patients who have a poor relationship with their provider are three times more likely to leave that provider. Conversely, a good member experience is linked with lower medical malpractice risk and greater employee satisfaction. Improving the patient experience means enhancing systems and work processes in the provider’s practice to ensure more effective care. For example, one hospital’s focused efforts to improve the patient care journey at one hospital decreased the employee turnover rate by 4.7 percent.
The Power of AI
It may seem overwhelming to meet your consumers’ needs, but doing so benefits consumers and providers alike. A unified platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can offer patients the convenience and personalization they experience in other industries while saving on benefits costs.
Since its launch in June 2020, Bluebook CareConnect™ has provided members with extraordinary savings on medical services. In addition to these savings, members can also find and schedule high-quality affordable care through personal guidance from member concierges.
Bluebook serves a variety of clients, including employers and their enrolled benefits members, health plan administrators, brokers and consultants, third-party administrators, and healthcare sharing ministries (i.e., organizations designed to help the uninsured pay for medical expenses by sharing costs with ministry members through a pooled fund).
The Bluebook member services and Bluebook CareConnect teams are focused on creating a positive experience every time a member reaches out for assistance. For example, a sharing ministry participant in Oregon saved nearly $20,000 on a hernia repair. Healthcare Bluebook member concierges worked with the providers of the procedure to estimate costs and organize every detail of the patient’s care, from the initial consultation to follow-up.
Note the difference in price for services between the surgery center and a local hospital where the same physician performs the same procedure. At a nearby hospital, costs would total nearly $25,255. But at the surgery center, the entire procedure came out to only $5,523.
Personal Guidance Throughout the Patient Journey
Without guidance, finding high-quality, affordable medical services can be difficult, especially when prices for the same procedure can vary as much as 1,000 percent between in-network facilities in the same location.
Bluebook member advocates, member concierges, and provider operations specialists guide members to high-value providers, potentially saving them thousands of dollars on shoppable procedures and diagnostic services. For example, MRI costs can vary by more than $2,000 between facilities. With Bluebook, a patient can search for and compare facilities that offer the procedure and ask their doctor if they work with any of the lower-cost facilities.
More About Bluebook Member Services
It’s important to ensure the care journey goes as smoothly as possible. With Bluebook CareConnect and Bluebook’s color-coded green-yellow-red digital guide, your members can easily locate and receive care from high-quality, affordable providers.
Want to learn more about the Bluebook CareConnect difference? Contact us to try our free search tool and schedule a Bluebook demo.
