Tag: Affordable Care Act

Obamacare with a New York accent

As a small business owner, I turn out to be one of those people who doesn’t get to keep the health insurance I like. We got the letter from our provider yesterday, advising us to go right to the New York State site thus avoiding the healthcare.gov train wreck. Unfortunately, mystateofhealth.ny.gov isn’t much better. I tried to register about 30 times each time getting the message that my session had expired as soon as I hit the “submit” button. It didn’t help that I had to get over a check of my preferred username to be sure no one else had it, and answer a particularly hard to read Captcha. Why in the world would they think bots would be trying to set up health accounts?

My wife had better luck today and got a good way through the application before the website went down. There were two drop-down menus at different points, one to identify our current health carrier and the other to identify our auto insurance provider (not sure why they need this info). And here’s the thing: the menu listings were in random order, vs. alphabetical. There were easily 100 health carriers and even more auto insurers so you just have to scroll back and forth till you find the one you’re looking for, and I bet there are lots of mistaken choices. My wife was able to find our health insurer. But when it got to auto insurance she scrolled and scrolled, back and forth, and finally realized our carrier (USAA) wasn’t on the list. So she put down “none” because that was the best choice available. Doesn’t exactly help the state exchange with the actuarial part.

Where do they get the people who code these sites? Isn’t there any kind of darwinism in government that rewards people who strive harder to do a good job? I know a lot of you will say “what a stupid question” but I really do try to have faith that people entrusted to help other people will take that responsibility seriously. So this is discouraging, and I hope we don’t get sick before we get insurance.

The Retailization of Heath Care at DMA2013

This was the best session I attended at the Direct Marketing Association’s just-concluded annual conference, featuring a CMO from a large insurer and a finance exec with huge experience in retail at Google, with excellent moderation from another healthcare exec. A few takeaways:

Tremendous change in the healthcare industry is underway, and it’s not just because of Obamacare. Used to be insurers could underwrite and consumers had no choice because they got insurance through employers. Now insurers have to accept everybody and consumers can shop around. Over the next 10 years a trillion dollars will shift in the industry as consumers shop around.

Google perspective: Google is where people come when they have concerns about their health. Worried about a diagnosis or a pain, they google it. They have a serious reason for being there and are making a critical decision about their health. 50% of queries now related to healthcare reform. Many queries from mobile devices and about Medicare… so it’s absolutely not true that “people 65+ don’t use the Internet”.

How healthcare is marketed: focus moving to retail. Consumers want self service. Price transparency is not necessarily a bad thing; retailers have known this for 10 years. (Retailers lead the way because their margins are razor thin so they have to be agile.) Insurers are worried about protecting their brand with standard Gold, Silver, Bronze levels. But customers not just interested in lower price, they will pay more for value if you demonstrate it. This is how Nike, Coach, Tiffany maintain a premium price.

The customer experience: companies need to add a Chief Customer Officer who reports directly to the C suite. Insurers are used to saying no to their customers; we’re in a new era where they need to learn to say yes. Don’t let your org chart show: if the customer goes through a phone tree and they have to answer the same health or personal questions they just answered to a new person, that’s your org chart showing. Customer has to be at the center of your business model, just as they are in retail.

Where should you spend your next dollar as a healthcare marketer? Traditional model was very straightforward: send people a mailer or an agent, they sign up. Now they may get input from a number of places. Most marketers don’t cover the fact that you’re watching an ad then go to Google and search; they don’t have a search strategy combined with their TV buy. Mobile devices a big black hole because there is no equivalent to a cookie to find out how they researched their decision on their phone or tablet, then moved to their computer or the other way round. Gamification may become part of the marketing process: reward people for learning about the health.

What’s the impact of the startup problems at healthcare.gov and the state exchanges? People assume that the Internet “just works” so this has been a profoundly negative experience. We know from retail that when people experience this kind of “choke point” they don’t return. But ACA is a marathon, not a sprint. The question is how well the government will respond from here.