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AIS's Health Business Daily
Featured Story Nov. 10, 2009
The Medicare Advantage Marketing Season Is Seen as ‘Good,’ With Retention Being the Main Focus Reprinted from MEDICARE ADVANTAGE NEWS, biweekly news and analysis on the Medicare (and Medicaid) managed care programs. By Judy Packer-Tursman, Editor, (tursman@comcast.net) Several weeks into the 2010 Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D selling season that began Oct. 1, phones are ringing, attendance is good at outreach events, and Medicare plans in general appear to be getting a response to their marketing efforts, industry consultants say. And they say that plans are putting greater emphasis this year on member retention. Enrollment in the annual election period (AEP) begins Nov. 15.
“It’s not slow in my opinion. Phones are ringing. People are busy doing what they can do before Nov. 15 in terms of getting information out….The [MA] plans I’m talking to, their attendance is good [at community education and outreach events], so I think it’s going to be a robust annual election period,” Lindsay Resnick, chief marketing officer for consulting firm Gorman Health Group, LLC, tells MAN.
Resnick cites various factors at play in creating a dynamic 2010 selling season. They include hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries seeking new plans because of some carriers pulling out of MA private-fee-for-service for 2010, while others, who are facing benefit reductions or premium hikes next year, are exploring new options.
All things considered, Resnick says, “I anticipate this [AEP] to be as good, if not a little bit better, than last year.”
Wayne Rosenberger, senior vice president of health care markets for Harte-Hanks, Inc., a direct-marketing firm, tells MAN that the two real drivers in the marketplace are PFFS pullouts and the federal government’s reduction in reimbursement rates to plans, which caused many plans to use a combination of benefit reductions and premium increases for coverage starting Jan. 1. When that occurs, beneficiaries “start looking around,” he says. He anticipates “a big shopping season.”
But Rosenberger says it remains questionable as to whether this could translate into beneficiaries moving from one MA plan to another, “because none of the plans are as attractive as they were last year.” Instead, Medicare supplemental insurance likely will come back into play this year, he says, although the shift of MA enrollees into Medigap plans likely won’t be huge for 2010.
“Our clients are getting very good response early on to TV in particular,” as well as community outreach events, Rosenberger says when asked about MA organizations’ current marketing strategies.
Rosenberger says that when his firm began strategic planning on 2010 marketing with its MA-plan clients, they discussed what promised to be a heavy “Medicare shopping season.” Thus, he says, plans ramped up call-center staffing to get ready for a spike in call volume — which has materialized. “We’re getting lots of calls,” he says. “It’s more than last year. Again, it’s all driven by the shopping because of benefit and premium changes — but I don’t know whether it will translate into sales.”
Resnick and Rosenberger both say they have talked with their clients about the importance of member retention this year in light of competitors’ increased efforts to lure members away. “So there’s a good deal more outreach to current customers going on,” Rosenberger notes.
Rosenberger says he thinks that MA plans are now spending “marginally more” on marketing than last year because it is a tougher sell — and some portion of that increased spending is going toward member retention.
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