We live in a digital world. The rapid advancement of mobile technology has given us access to everything we want or need with just a click or a swipe. As a society, we have become conditioned to communicating digitally—and it’s not just the younger generations. Older generations—both boomers and seniors—are adopting, and adapting to, digital communication. Internet usage by people ages 65 and older has tripled during the past 15 years, and doubled for ages 50-64 during the same time period. ABG is a change agent supporting the increasing adoption of these practices by plans as they embrace these technologies to better serve their members. To succeed in the increasingly competitive Medicare environment, plans must adopt digital member communications strategies.
Why Digital?
The growing call to increased consumerism and information transparency has raised the stakes in Medicare. Both increased competition and regulations are colliding to shake up the status quo. In order to survive and thrive, plan providers must acquire and retain members—and cut costs in the process. Digital communication strategies can help plans do both.
Digital communication has been proven to increase member satisfaction, giving plans a leg up on retention. They provide much needed budget relief, too, saving significant money on fulfillment and delivery costs. Implementing digital content delivery into Medicare communications is, quite simply, a no-brainer.
The Silver Tsunami
The baby boomers are coming! Medicare membership is exploding—there were 55 million enrollees in 2015—and presenting significant communications challenges for the plan and their pharmacy benefit management partners. The audience is large, and they’re listening. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Medicare demographic is increasingly technologically savvy, and they expect to communicate digitally.
We Want Digital and We Want It Now
Internet usage by Medicare-age populations has risen rapidly during the past two decades, but that’s only part of the story. The depth of Internet usage (the amount of time spent on the Internet and with technology) is rapidly increasing as well, creating a force-multiplier that speeds technology adoption and expectations. Internet users in these demographics are “sticky”—once they adopt, they’re all-in.
A study by Pew Research stated, “Despite some of these unique challenges facing the older adult population, when it comes to technology, most seniors who become Internet users make visiting the digital world a regular occurrence.”
Another study from Google and Ipsos, states that both groups spend an average of 19 hours on the Internet each week—more time than they spend with TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. This reality means that Medicare plan providers must quickly adopt digital content delivery if they want to keep their members engaged— or risk losing members to plans who do.
If You Build it, They Will Come
Plans are, understandably, wary of costs when it comes to adopting a comprehensive digital content delivery system. For many, digital communications represent a massive sea change from their existing model. We’re often asked about ROI, and where it will be realized. While ROI will undoubtedly be realized in member retention going forward, it’s much easier to look at the immediate benefits in cost savings related to document fulfillment for “like volumes”—comparing apples to apples.
As any government program manager knows, Medicare document fulfillment requirements can be costly. Digital document fulfillment can provide significant cost savings over traditional print and postage delivery. In order to realize these savings, though, adoption is key. The accelerating rates of boomer technology adoption has proved to be an enabler of digital member communication adoption. Based on a review of mixed Medicare and commercial campaign lists, adoption ranges from 30 percent to 60 percent. Even if we assume 30 percent, this rate is more than enough to realize almost immediate ROI from a digital strategy.
Opportunity is Knocking—Loudly
Digital content delivery isn’t simply about saving trees by using less paper, but it’s a long-term strategy to meet the voluminous Medicare communication requirements, as well as engage members to increase satisfaction and retention. Digital communication opens up a whole new medium to meet the needs of a growing and changing Medicare audience today, and in the future.
