Resource
Center:
Strategies for Improving Health Plan Member Retention and Loyalty
Member retention is becoming an issue of increasing concern and focus among HMOs and other health plans. There was a natural tendency to grow through aggressive new member acquisition in the early growth stages of the managed care industry. As market penetration has increased and the marketplace has become very competitive, new members are increasingly lost members from other plans. Attention is therefore being given to member retention.
There are a number of steps you can take now to increase member retention and build customer loyalty. This page will offer a series of tips to help you achieve these goals.
Step #5: Create Retention Incentives (a.k.a. Switching Barriers) for Members and Payers
A lesson easily learned from many other industries is that certain types of incentives will be effective in realizing customer loyalty. Airlines have frequent flyer miles; financial services organizations have affinity credit cards. Thinking in this direction may work for health plans as well. These strategies offer particular opportunity to create a membership mentality among Medicare Risk enrollees. An increasing number of incentives are being employed to encourage preferred behavior (e.g., refer another eligible, attend orientation seminars, obtain flu shots.) However, to date, most of these incentives are disconnected and offer enrollees little (if any) choice as to the reward for exhibiting the preferred behavior. Retention and behavior incentive programs should be integrated within an overall membership initiative program that offers enrollees choices of rewards for preferred behaviors. While these incentives will probably not overcome major deficiencies in other loyalty factors, they should be considered as an important ingredient in the retention recipe.
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Step #1 | Step #2 | Step #3 | Step #4 | Step #5 | Step #6 | Step #7