Request a Demo

Tag: Medicare

D-SNP Spotlight, Part 2: Engagement Opportunities within the 2023 Ruling

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

The CY 2023 Medicare Advantage and Part D Final Rule places a magnifying glass on vulnerable D-SNP members with additional regulations that will require plans to integrate services, adopt new products designed to deepen engagement, drive growth and retention, and inspire meaningful behavior change. Plans must consider these new guidelines when designing their D-SNP engagement programs. Visit Part 1, D-SNP Spotlight: Engagement Opportunities within the 2023 Ruling, to read a summary of the ruling and related changes to D-SNP regulations.

Why D-SNP? 

D-SNP members offer plans a unique engagement challenge, particularly due to their hard-to-reach reputation and growth potential. There are roughly 4 million D-SNP members nationwide, with 7 million additional individuals remaining eligible. This rapidly expanding population saw a growth increase of 52% since 2018, with an increase of 16.4% in 2021 alone. 

This fast-growing member population qualifies for both Medicaid and Medicare due to their complex needs and requirements. D-SNP members often have a disabling condition, suffer from mental health disorders, receive care from multiple doctors for a variety of health conditions, and/or receive in-home care or other specialized health and social service care. D-SNP members also have access to additional benefits which often include dental care, discounted over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, hearing exams, annual eye exams, and no-cost transportation to health care visits.  

Despite their complex needs, D-SNP members open the door to several opportunities due to the requirements in place that enforce plan coordination and whole person care engagement models. Here are a few opportunities to consider.

Opportunities to Engage and Drive Outcomes  

Cut Through the Competition 

Creating meaningful relationships is the key to retaining members, and the stakes are high when it comes to D-SNP. To retain members, each individual needs to feel seen and addressed. Scaling communications across an entire population is no small feat, particularly when each member has their own unique needs and challenges. 

Personalized omnichannel messaging is essential to creating a valuable experience and allows for resources and services to be delivered on a case-by-case basis through each member’s preferred channel of communication. Conversational AI allows messaging to remain dynamic, while Natural Language Understanding (NLU) analyzes each response. mPulse Mobile uses a combination of industry, public and private data sets combined with plan data to create highly accurate predictions, and continually optimizes dialogs using conversational insights. By sending the right message at key moments, and providing resources and information each member needs most, we can begin building meaningful relationships that reduce churn. 

Break Down the Barriers 

Reaching and getting D-SNP members to engage is a great start, but instilling behavior change and self-efficacy to create action? Definitely a challenge – particularly when we consider the unique needs D-SNP members face. Members face a combination of mental health and physical health challenges, which can include ailments such as substance abuse and comorbidities. They often receive in-home care, reside in long-term care facilities, or have designated caregivers. These situations can create even more barriers to engaging and activating D-SNP members. Despite obstacles, providing relevant and critical care information and resources, particularly benefits they may not be aware they have access to, through their preferred communication channel is a great first step. But how do we create meaningful behavior change? 

We can begin building health literacy by providing powerful media experiences that include interactive and educational modalities. mPulse Mobile offers streaming health education across a variety of health topics. All content is designed by our team of production designers and learning strategists, with the goal to build skills that empower members to own their health and adopt healthier behaviors over time. Not only do we design for health literacy, we design for entertainment and boast a 71% member self-reported likelihood to take action after engaging with our streaming content.  

Drive Value Again and Again 

D-SNP members offer plans tons of flexibility. Because Medicare and Medicaid benefits are tied into a single member, premium dollars increase and open the door to curating much-needed exceptional member experiences. Allowing plan resources and benefits to reach, engage and educate this rapidly growing and vulnerable population is crucial. To attain and retain the market share, developing partnerships with organizations designed to drive repeated value is key. Understanding your member’s needs, using behavioral and learning science to engage and educate them, and driving action at key moments increases member retention, and delivers better health outcomes. 

How mPulse drove a 58% D-SNP Engagement Rate 

mPulse partnered with a national payer who serves over 17 million members nationwide, with D-SNP member eligibility available in 28 states.  

Goals 

The program focuses on welcoming new D-SNP members to the plan, with an emphasis on increasing awareness and utilization of available benefits and services. By providing a white glove experience, the plan aimed to increase retention of D-SNP members and create meaningful relationships with these members at scale. Additional goals included HRA completion. 

Execution 

Over the course of three weeks, more than 45,000 D-SNP members were enrolled into a 3-week SMS program. Each week promoted a different service offering, including healthy food card and over-the-counter pharmaceutical discounts, as well as assistance in finding a provider and ensuring members received their ID cards.  

Results 

SMS text messages saw a 99% delivery rate with 58% engagement. More than 30% of engagement included link clicks to related plan benefit offerings, which included over-the-counter pharmaceutical discount cards, healthy food cards, and provide finder links.

What’s next?  

By understanding how to reach members with complex needs, plans can cut through the competition and provide unrivaled experiences for D-SNP members. mPulse Mobile is the leader in Conversational AI solutions for the healthcare industry and operates to continually drive outcomes using tailored and engaging digital experiences. Our rich understanding of diverse populations enables our team of behavioral and learning scientists to curate highly tailored programs designed to impact the lives served by our 180+ client roster.

Longest. Unwinding. Ever. The Continuous Wind Down of Continuous Enrollment

Posted on by Reva Sheehan

912 days sit between the beginning of the Public Health Emergency (PHE) and today, July 26, 2022. The PHE has been renewed 10 times, with the latest extension set to expire on October 13, 2022. There has been no shortage of speculation around the last two extensions, especially after the Biden-Harris administration committed to providing states with at least a 60 day notice prior to its plans to terminate or allow the PHE to end.

In March of 2020, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) was signed into law. This particular piece of legislation focused on many programs impacting children and families, including but not limited to Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program, family and medical leave, school lunch, emergency paid sick leave, and state based programs for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligibility and enrollment requirements. The latter of these provisions effectively froze Medicaid disenrollment during the PHE allowing for continuous coverage for current beneficiaries. Prior to the pandemic, states were required to reprocess eligibility for most of its enrollees on an annual basis, this process is referred to as redetermination.  

Medicaid and CHIP enrollments have increased by approximately 19% or 13.6 million enrollees between February 2020 and September 2021 with an additional 1.2 million enrollees added to the roster since the September report. To offset increased program spending coupled with decreased state tax revenue, the FFCRA authorized a 6.2 percentage point increase in the Federal Medical Assistance Program (FMAP) and in return expected continuous enrollment. This FMAP bump will continue through the end of the first quarter in which the PHE ends. 

When the End Comes…

Now that we’ve covered some of the basics, let’s look what it means for the plan when the PHE and continuous enrollment ends, and redetermination resumes for its beneficiaries. The end of continuous enrollment is expected to create the single largest health coverage transition since the first Marketplace Open Enrollment. Due to the high volume of unprocessed eligibility renewals and the increase in membership, states have been given a 12-month unwinding period to manage this administrative task. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued an Unwinding Toolkit and CMS has encouraged states to only process 1/9 of its total caseload in a single month; processing more than this creates an increased risk of people falling through the cracks and being unnecessarily disenrolled resulting in a loss of coverage and potential increase of additional administrative work to bring them back in.  

Keep in mind each state will have its own pathway and plan to work through this transitional phase. For example, some states have indicated they will target enrollees who appear to no longer be eligible first and others plan to conduct renewals on a monthly basis based on the individual’s initial enrollment month and some states have also reported they plan to process the backlog as soon as 3-6 months with others using the full 12 plus months.  

Projections for total Medicaid and CHIP growth during the pandemic and scenarios calculating total loss of coverage continue to shift and grow with varying levels of certainty and range from 5 to 14 million enrollees losing coverage. Even at the lowest end of the loss projections, five million people is an awful lot! While some loss may not be preventable, complete, and total disruption can be avoidable for those who be eligible for coverage on a Marketplace (aka Affordable Care Act or ACA) plan. This shift to retention will be more bearable and less burdensome if American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) subsidies continue for the estimated 13 million Marketplace enrollees currently receiving a premium reducing subsidy.  

Planning for the Unwinding of Continuous Enrollment

So, we’ve covered some basics on what it means for the plan (a lot of work ahead), what it means for the member (a lot of uncertainty still remains), and now about what it means to everyone in between which in this instance is us, mPulse and that’s where I start to get excited. There are phased approaches and best practices from our friends in California who have been given the green light to reach members in just about any way possible even allowing plans to solicit opt-in consent for future updates by text message to the East coast where communications to CoverVA enrollees in Virginia are being encouraged to update their contact information by signing up for email or text alerts and following via social media.  

I’m no math whiz, but this one is easy: X + 14 = Regular Redetermination Resumes 

With X being the unknown number of additional PHE extensions and 14 the number of total months allowed to manage the backlog at the end of the PHE you’ll find yourself back where you were before COVID-19 was a household name. Regardless of where you are in your own state’s phase approach, you can count on trusted partners like mPulse to engage the unengaged and reach the unreachable in your membership. Not sure where to start? Reach out to learn more about the power of SMS and find out how many of your contact numbers are mobile vs. land lines.

CMS 2023 Ruling’s Impact on D-SNP Populations, Part 1

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Contract Year 2023 Medicare Advantage and Part D Final Rule. The ruling places a spotlight on the vulnerable D-SNP population, and places health plans in a challenging yet opportunistic position to engage these notoriously difficult-to-reach members.

2023 Ruling’s Impact on D-SNP at a Glance 

Enrollee Participation in Plan Governance 

MA organizations offering a D-SNP must establish at least one enrollee advisory committee in each state to solicit input from member experiences. The sample must include those enrolled in D-SNP and garner input from members regarding access to services, coordination of services and health equity. 

Opportunity: Feedback will help identify and address barriers to care, which will allow plans to further assess their series and processes to ensure a better member experience, while also collecting valuable data regarding their unique member population.

Standardizing Housing, Food Insecurity, and Transportation Questions of Health Risk Assessments (HRAs)

Initial and Annual assessments will be conducted to evaluate each member’s physical, psychosocial, and functional needs. HRAs must include one or more questions on housing stability, food security, and access to transportation.  

Opportunity: Visibility of member needs will enable plans to address the unique needs of each member, allowing better access and resource allocation of plan offerings and services.

Refining Definitions for Fully Integrated and Highly Integrated D-SNPS 

Beginning in 2025 and in years following, FIDE SNPs will have aligned enrollment and cover Medicare cost-sharing and Medicaid benefits for home health services, medical supplies, and behavioral health services between the state and the MCO, with the same legal entity as the FIDE SNP. Additionally, HIDE SNPs have service that overlaps the plan’s Medicaid managed care plan with the state. This rule will organize Medicaid long-term services while supporting Medicaid behavioral health services affiliated with FIDE SNPs and HIDE SNPs.  

Opportunity: Create better integration between FIDE SNPs and HIDE SNPs, whose definition and intricacies have previously lacked consistency.

Additional Opportunities for Integration Through State Medicaid Agency Contract

D-SNP contracts will be required through the state agency to provide benefits/ arrange a provision of benefits. New pathways will require aligned enrollment and establish contracts that only include one or more D-SNPs within a state and use integrated materials and notices for members. 

Opportunity: Members have clarity of their coverage and benefits. Star Ratings are assigned at the contract level, which means this rule provides greater transparency on D-SNP quality ratings and will allow CMS to identify disparities between beneficiaries and interventions. This will improve federal and state oversight and scale information sharing.

Attainment of the Maximum Out-Of-Pocket (MOOP) Limit

Plans must establish a limit on beneficiary cost-saving for Medicare Part A and B services after the plan pays 100% of the costs. Current guidance allows MA plans, including D-SNPs to not count Medicaid-paid amounts or unpaid amounts towards the MOOP limit, which results in increased state payments of Medicare cost-sharing and disadvantages providers serving D-SNP members. The MOOP limit within the plan will be calculated based on total cost sharing, regardless of whether it was paid by the beneficiary, Medicaid, secondary insurance, or left unpaid. 

Opportunity: More equitable payments for providers serving D-SNPs. This will result in increased bid costs, and increased Medicare spending, which will be offset by lower federal Medicaid spending. The net federal 10-year cost is estimated at $614.8 million. 

As plans heighten their attention and focus on D-SNP members with the new ruling in mind, several opportunities surface and a more robust engagement model that provides an exceptional experience becomes critical. Look out for Part 2, D-SNP Spotlight: Engagement Opportunities within the 2023 Ruling, to learn how plans can upgrade their engagement strategy to drive proven outcomes with D-SNP members. 

Frictionless Healthcare, Part 3: The Power of Reciprocity in Healthcare

Posted on by Eden Brownell

Don’t forget to catch up with Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series first!

______________________

So, readers, let’s talk more about theory and research. Robert Cialdini has been studying the science of persuasion for over forty years. In 1984 he wrote Influence, which reveals 6 principles of persuasion. It was an instant success and sits on the desks of advertising executives, copywriters, and marketeers everywhere, and reciprocity is the first of Cialdini’s six universal principles of persuasion. Why? Because the evidence shows that it works. 

Free coffee and donuts help car salespeople close deals. A couple of unexpected candies in the check at a restaurant gets the server a bigger tip (particularly if they come back to the table and hand deliver the second candy to “you lovely, special people”). When the hotel donates to charity on your behalf, you reuse a towel that you’d normally throw on the floor.  

Reciprocity in Healthcare

You are probably thinking to yourself, “Cool, but what the heck does this have to do with healthcare?” Healthcare organizations have a real need for information or action from members, and it’s not always easy to get. By using a value first design to your approach (which means you provide the member with something valuable first and ask for the return favor later), you increase the likelihood of success.

We don’t just think and talk about these concepts, though. We put it into practice, and the Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) for Medicare beneficiaries is a perfect example of a healthcare initiative in which reciprocity can play a big role.  

We innovated on the standard HOS solution by applying value first design, so instead of asking members to answer a questionnaire by telling them that it’s very important (it’s important to the health plan, not the member, by the way), we first provide them with a fun, engaging digital experience designed to be valuable, personal, and unexpected. Most importantly, it includes changes members can make easily and quickly in their own lives. It’s only after we provide this experience that we ask members to provide their feedback, allowing us to identify high risk members so the plan can act.

Useful tip: Don’t only give first (it isn’t enough). Aim to also give a gift unexpectedly. In a study, customers who were given surprise discount coupons upon entering a shop spent on average 11% more than those who were given the coupons in advance. The unexpected nature of the gift amplified customer responses. Ensure that what you give is unexpected relative to the norm of what’s expected. 

Want to learn more about using reciprocity in healthcare? Watch the on-demand webinar » 

Something Unexpected 

Enter streaming health content. It’s something unexpected from healthcare but familiar to the member because it resembles media they consume every day, such as Tik Tok and Instagram stories. In this HOS example, the unexpected and helpful gifts are Fotonovelas, which are stories told through auto-advancing images (much like the snapchat or Instagram story experience). 

One of the biggest mysteries of neuroscience is how we create meaning out of the world. Stories are deep-rooted in the core of our nature and help us create this meaning.

Information presented in a story-based format is more easily remembered than plain statistics or facts. According to Stanford Graduate School of Business’ research, stories are 22 times more memorable than facts alone. This is likely because stories universally activate brain regions dealing with emotional processing and memory.

A powerful communication tool, stories can capture attention, build trust and credibility, and deliver messages and insights with impact. In the next installment in our Frictionless Healthcare blog and webinar series, we will go more in depth into storytelling effect, the psychology behind storytelling, and how to leverage it within your organization, so stay tuned and maybe sign up for our newsletter below (nudge nudge). 

Speaking of attention, dear readers, I’m probably losing yours. So, let’s wrap things up with some key takeaways about reciprocity.   

  • It’s how relationships are built ​ 
  • It’s not a trade or negotiation​ 
  • Follow the order of events: give, then ask​ 
  • Give something unexpected, personal, and valuable to increase the impact 

To learn more about using reciprocity in healthcare outreach, watch the full webinar below.

Read part four of this blog series!

6 Innovations in Streaming Health Content that Improve Member Experience

Posted on by Nicole Lopez

The logic behind streaming health content is simple. Just telling someone that it’s time to get a mammogram or renew a prescription isn’t always enough to get them to do it. There are numerous barriers to consider: social determinates of health (SDOH) factors, health beliefs, the health literacy gap, apathy, and more. Sending a well-timed, well-written text message can sometimes do the job, but often we need to go further and help the health consumer understand why taking an action matters and how they are benefiting from it. Or we simply need to get their attention for long enough to even hear us out.  

Streaming health education, when thoughtfully integrated into engagement solutions, can achieve all of these things. It infuses current and innovative types of content into member outreach in new ways. The same way we have seen the biggest brands integrate streaming content into the consumer experience, healthcare can mirror and change the way they interact with their populations and, more importantly, change the way their populations interact with them.  

6 Innovative Best Practices in Streaming Health Content

 

Innovation 1: Types of Content

The most innovative aspect of content in the last few years just may be the format it’s delivered in. Overall, there are four major content categories we’ve seen work well when brought into healthcare outreach. 

Gifs

A lot can be said with a well-timed gif, and using humor to capture attention, as gifs usually do, are an effective way to focus the member on a very real issue, such as fall safety in our example above. 

Self-Produced Videos

Self-produced videos are often short, recorded in selfie mode, and have less focus on production value. These qualities make them more personal, fun, and more able to capture attention and connect the creator with the audience.  

Licensable Streaming Content

Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, and more! Streaming is the main delivery method for content today and used by a huge amount of the population. With the option of licensable libraries of streaming health education content now on the market, healthcare organizations can enter the game and have a better chance of meeting members where they are and in the ways they already live their lives. 

Stories

Started by Snapchat and copied by Facebook and Instagram, stories are now everywhere. Healthcare can take stories and use social media as another channel to communicate with their populations or repurpose them for SMS delivered solutions. 

Innovation 2: Making the Ask 

Now that you have your content format ready to go, you’ll want clear, robust calls to action embedded within the streaming health experience, which is our second innovative best practice. Think about it this way: all the content delivered quickly falls short if you aren’t ultimately making the ask. 

When crafting your call to action, make sure it is not only closely tied to the content being delivered but it is also specifically based on that recipient’s needs.  

Interested in learning more? Access the guide to get the full version of this content » 

Innovation 3: Integrating Your Content into Your Programs 

When you combine conversational AI capabilities with health content, you can uncover barriers to action through the consumer’s response and in turn deliver bite-sized educational clips to address their specific obstacle. This way, you are not only educating them on why they should take a certain action, but you are delivering tailored content which educates around the specific reason that individual is not complying. And because this is built on conversational AI technology, all of this is done at scale, yet individualized, for your entire population. 

 

Innovation 4: Creating Surround Sound

Most of the daily lives of health consumers is digital– emails, websites, apps, social media, text messaging, phone calls, streaming content, and more. This makes it easy to apply our fourth innovative technique: create surround sound by producing a digital omnichannel experience. 

In action, it might look like this: If we were heading into winter and you were trying to drive flu vaccinations, you might post an interactive FAQ to your organization’s social media story, send the mini lesson video through email or text message, and have the full vaccine lesson available through your website portal. Your audience would likely run into your content multiple times, which serves to reinforce the educational message and makes it more likely they’ll act on it. 

Innovation 5: Targeting Your Content to Clear Business Goals 

Your streaming health content is only as effective as it is in line with your goal. So, when producing and deploying content, you should tie it to the areas of your business you want to see an impact on—Health Outcomes Surveys (HOS), preventive screenings, diabetes prevention, and gaps in care just to name a few. Plainly, if your content isn’t addressing the action you’re trying to drive, you won’t drive that action. 

Innovation 6: Data, Data, Data 

Metrics regularly tracked still apply, such as text messages delivered, response rate, and completion rate of the desired action. Integrating streaming health content into your outreach, though, broadens the data you have access to for outreach performance and reporting. Now we can look at clickthrough rate to videos or activities, total views, engagement time, pages or lessons viewed per person, average number of course enrollments, average view time per piece of content, and so much more.

Integrating Health Content into Your Engagement Programs 

When healthcare organizations take the innovative approach of creating educational health content (videos, bite-sized content, interactive FAQs, polls, quizzes, and more) and incorporate it in their outreach, we see much longer engagement times, the underlying problem of health literacy improve, and the fostering of better relationships between healthcare organizations and health consumers. 

Our hope is this new frontier of educational health content creates a change in the health literacy of our society as a whole and improves the engagement and investment of individuals in their own health and well-being. 

Interested in even deeper insights into this new way of outreach? Download the guide, 6 Innovations in Streaming Health Content that Improves the Member Experience, to get the full version of this content.

How to Address Changes in Patient Engagement and Motivate Flu Vaccination Fulfillment

Posted on by mPulse Team

Flu season is coming back around, and in a post-COVID world, that means changes in how members engage when it comes to being vaccinated. Lingering perspectives related to vaccine hesitancy may influence members’ reluctance to be vaccinated for the flu despite vaccinations being even more critical to their continued health. Health plans, providers, and pharmacies will have to work harder this year to ensure their health consumers are vaccinated and protected against the flu than they have in years past.

In the 2022–23 flu season, vaccination coverage with ≥1 dose of flu vaccine was 57.4% among children 6 months through 17 years, similar to the 2021–22 flu season (57.8%), and flu vaccination coverage among adults ≥18 years was 46.9%, a decrease of 2.5 percentage points from the prior season (49.4%).

With the unpredictability of flu severity from season to season, outreach and patient engagement to provide information and identify resources for access to vaccinations is integral to a health plan’s ability to proactively communicate with diverse populations through targeted content.

Annually, unvaccinated individuals will cost the healthcare system over $10.4 billion and an additional $17.6 Billion in lost worker productivity.

Flu vaccine patient education can help to prevent:

  • 5 million flu-related illnesses
  • 7 million flu-associated medical visits
  • 105k flu-associated hospitalizations, and
  • 3k flu-associated deaths 

So, what can the healthcare industry do to combat this? With tools like behavioral science, interactive flu vaccine education, and conversational AI at their disposal, it’s possible to see significant increases in flu vaccination rates among members.

Let’s take a closer look at why.

The Foundation: Science of Human Behavior

Let’s start with the basics for any outreach program we run: behavioral science. In this mega-study conducted by The University of Pennsylvania and Walmart, 22 different behavioral science techniques were tested. These 22 varied techniques were embedded into messages delivered through SMS to over 650,000 Walmart pharmacy patients to determine which boosted vaccination rates the highest. Overall, including all these techniques increased flu vaccination rates by an average of 6.7% over a three-month follow-up period.

However, the endowment effect was the most effective technique, which encouraged patients to visit Walmart for a flu vaccine reserved specifically for them. By telling a person a particular flu shot is ‘reserved for you’ and already belongs to them, the vaccine becomes a tangible thing of value that they own. The Endowment Effect is an emotional bias to put a higher value on owned objects. This approach also uses the technique of Loss Aversion, a bias that makes us care nearly twice as much about avoiding loss than receiving an equivalent gain. In this case, if you don’t claim your flu shot, you’ll lose something you own.

We use behavioral science in every program we deploy for our clients, but this study specifically and the endowment effect itself was the basis with which we built our flu vaccination solution for the 2022-2023 flu season. What UPenn and Walmart didn’t have, though, was the following few factors that pushed our flu program beyond even this study.

Streaming flu vaccine patient education

With so much flu vaccine hesitancy in our post-COVID world, flu vaccine patient education about the safety and efficacy of vaccinations is a necessary step, and departing from the mundane pamphlets and brochures of the past by utilizing streaming health content is an extremely effective way to do this.

fotonovela to help improve flu vaccine patient education

The content we’ve produced for flu vaccine education is a series of fotonovelas, which are auto-forwarding image-based stories with a visual interface similar to the stories feature on Instagram. Fotonovelas are ultimately a health literacy tool, but at the same time, they make learning fun and easy (80% of learners on our platform report liking or loving the fotonovela content type).

In this specific flu fotonovela below, the characters featured resonate with diverse audiences, the storylines detailed transcend linguistic and cultural barriers to deliver essential information, and the tone provides empathy and support on the path toward the desired call to action. The best part is that health patients who view a Fotonovela are 72% more likely to get vaccinated.

2-Way conversations uncover barriers

Having 2-way conversations allows you to gather insights about your members that can inform future communication.

  • What is their sentiment toward the program and plan?
  • Why haven’t they been vaccinated?
  • Have they already been vaccinated, and we don’t know?

Knowing why they haven’t been vaccinated allows the plan to respond with education and resources to assist.

  • Do they need help figuring out where to go? Send them the information to their nearest pharmacy.
  • What about if they’re not sure they need a flu vaccination? Send them a Fotonovela to educate them!

Multiple channels, multiple languages

The UPenn and Walmart mega-study tested SMS messages, but why stop there? A large part of an effective engagement strategy is meeting members where they are. As such, our solution includes SMS, IVR, and email channels. Take the concept of meeting members where they are one step further, and you’ll get the ability to deploy this vaccination solution in both English and Spanish. This means reaching more of your population in the way they want to communicate.

Tackle flu early and effectively

The CDC recommends that everyone six months and older, especially people at higher risk, should get a flu vaccine annually to reduce their risk of contracting seasonal flu, alleviate the severity of symptoms, and decrease the likelihood of experiencing major health complications if infected. The importance of each individual vaccinating against the flu needs to be communicated to members through targeted, succinct, and easily understandable materials delivered through channels to reach them where they are most apt to respond and be motivated to act. Studies have found that patients who are informed and effectively motivated are also more likely to adhere to their treatment recommendations.

Our flu vaccination solution

mPulse Mobile’s flu vaccination solution uses proven behavioral science, dynamic content, and an omnichannel approach to overcome common vaccine barriers and get more members vaccinated. With over 15M Flu vaccination touchpoints sent to Medicaid, Medicare, and Commercial members by mPulse in the last two years using its 2-way Natural Language Understanding platform, we have learned from millions of past vaccine conversations in both Spanish and English. We use behavioral science in a relatable and quick experience and employ Fotonovelas to empower members to act. We can help overcome common barriers and resistance by listening for vaccine readiness.

For more information on this flu vaccination solution and a live demo on how we can improve your flu vaccine patient education, register for our webinar, Double Your Vaccination Rates for Your Health Population.

Frictionless Healthcare, Part 2: Using Reciprocity to Increase Motivation

Posted on by Eden Brownell

Behavioral science describes the study of behavior through experimentation and observation. Behavioral scientists study when and why individuals engage in specific behaviors by examining the impact of factors such as conscious thoughts, motivation, social influences, contextual effects, and habits. This week, we will look at how reciprocity can be used in healthcare design and content.

________________________

Dear reader, have you ever wondered what could make you not want to drop a hotel towel on the floor after the first use? Well, a card in a hotel bathroom might do it if it were written the right way. My good friend, Robert Cialdini, and his colleagues investigated this (okay we aren’t really good friends, but a girl can dream, right?) by testing multiple different card appeals to see which would lead to the highest rate of behavior change. They found that neither the basic environmental-protection message urging us to save some no name penguin (although, feel free to name him whichever way you like) nor the message with cooperation appeal could hold a candle to a different kind of push – our need to reciprocate. 

 The most effective way to induce the desired response was to give the donation first then ask a guest to cooperate in this effort. The message with reciprocation appeal, giving first read: 

 “WE’RE DOING OUR PART FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. CAN WE COUNT ON YOU? Because we are committed to preserving the environment, we have made a financial contribution to a nonprofit environmental protection organization on behalf of the hotel and its guests. If you would like to help us in recovering the expense, while conserving natural resources, please reuse your towels during your stay”.

 This method reported almost a 47% success rate, which was significantly greater than the cooperation condition. Why? Because the hotel donated money first on behalf of its guests and only then asked them to join in on it. You didn’t need to reuse your towel, but you felt sort of obliged to. If you didn’t recycle (help them claim the money back), well, you would probably feel a little bad, which is reciprocity in a nutshell. 

Reciprocity in Healthcare

But what does this story have to do with healthcare? The principle of reciprocity means you are more likely to comply with a request if it comes from someone who has previously done something for you, and in healthcare, obtaining compliance is a constant goal. Whether it’s urging members to get their preventive screenings or convincing patients to diet and exercise to bring down their A1C, driving healthy action is important to plans and providers, and reciprocity is a powerful tool to get this done. Let’s review one other case study before taking a deeper look at this in healthcare setting.

Want to learn more about using reciprocity in healthcare? Watch the on-demand webinar » 

 In this next example, the British Behavioral Insights Team joined forces with the NHS Blood and Transplant, the Department of Health, Government Digital Services, and DVLA to investigate a way to increase signups to the organ donor registry. It ended up being more complex than expected and was one of the biggest trials in the history of the UK public sector.

 Given the subject of this blog, you might have already figured they used reciprocity in a clever way to reach their goal. They inserted short phrases with various behavioral science techniques embedded into an existing vehicle tax webpage, and linked it to the organ donor register, which appeared after a user had finished obtaining their vehicle tax. The best-performing behavioral science technique (surprise, surprise) was the reciprocity appeal, which outperformed the existing webpage by roughly 100,000 registrants per year. Here is how it read: 

 “If you needed an organ transplant, would you have one? If so, please help others.”

 Oftentimes, healthcare organizations can approach a lot of healthcare problems with an eye towards getting members to provide them with information (even though they have a tendency not to). The trick is to flip this process by providing the member with something valuable first and encouraging them to think about these issues on their own before we ask them to share their thoughts and feelings, which is called value first design.

 In the context of digital product experiences, users are more likely to engage with your product if you first provide value to them. They’ll be more likely to trust you and reciprocate. This concept is even more important when you’re about to ask for something big from your users, such as signing up for something or closing a healthcare gap. In part 3 of this blog series, we’ll dive into the specific architecture of outreach and how to build in reciprocity by combining behavior science and streaming health education to create a value first design.

7 Ways to Use Streaming Content in Your Health Communication, Part 1

Posted on by mPulse Team

In healthcare, engaging health consumers effectively is becoming increasingly complex. Health plans, providers, hospital systems, and pharmacies deploy various communication strategies – from emails and text messages to phone calls and live events – all to motivate health consumers toward better health decisions. However, the key to capturing attention and prompting action often lies in overcoming knowledge, skill, or motivation gaps. This is where streaming health education, a nuanced form of digital health content, emerges as a vital tool.

But getting someone to stop, pay attention, and act can be challenging. There are many barriers that stand in the way. When one or more of those barriers reflects knowledge, skill, or motivation gaps, streaming health education might supply the nudge that helps move them in the right direction.

Streaming health content, a sophisticated approach to health literacy, merges the strengths of digital content strategy, behavioral science, and instructional design to craft impactful learning experiences. It’s not just about delivering information; it’s about engaging health consumers through diverse formats like animated videos, interactive activities, and expert-led courses. This post delves into seven innovative ways healthcare organizations can harness streaming health content to drive critical health behaviors, starting with the captivating storytelling format of fotonovelas.

As we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of digital health content, it’s clear that the right health content can educate and empower consumers, leading to better health outcomes and adherence to care plans.

Nudging your members to act with streaming health education

What is streaming health education? It’s our take on health literacy promotion. It borrows from the best of digital content strategy, behavior science, and instructional design to create powerful learning experiences for your members.

From short, animated videos and interactive activities to media-rich online lessons and courses taught by leading health experts, there are many different and innovative ways to create and provide content to your health consumers.

In this post, we break down 7 ways healthcare organizations can use digital health content in their engagement programs to drive essential health behaviors, starting with fotonovelas.

Use Fotonovelas to Encourage Flu Vaccinations

Over 3 million Americans get the flu yearly, and the cost to the healthcare system and society in general adds up to a whopping 11.2 billion dollars a year. This is a great reason to educate members on flu vaccinations, which can be done well through fotonovelas, which are character-based stories told through photos or illustrations.

Example of a flu fotonovela included in our flu vaccination solution where health consumers are educatedIn this flu fotonovela, which is one of the four included in our flu vaccination solution, health consumers are educated on why a flu shot matters and common barriers and misconceptions related to flu vaccination. At the end, they’re given an easy resource for scheduling their shot.

It’s ultimately a health literacy tool, but at the same time, it makes learning fun and easy. Behavioral Strategist, Eden Brownell, explained the reason for the success of fotonovelas on the Pharmacy Friends podcast. “The perceived effort is lower. You can provide a large amount of information in a large text message, or you can bundle it up into a fotonovela. [In a fotonovela] it’s broken up. They’re able to see the progression they’re making through the story, which provides them with a sense of accomplishment, and the way it’s being delivered feels easier. When people feel that something is easier, they’re more likely to like it.”

And we find that fotonovelas are certainly well-liked. 80% of learners on our platform report liking or loving the fotonovela content type.

Interactive Content to Promote Medication Adherence

20-30% of medication prescriptions are never filled. Almost 50% of prescriptions are not taken as prescribed. It’s hard for a medicine to work of you don’t take it.

But then again, it’s hard to get your members to abide by their medication regimen if you aren’t addressing barriers to compliance and educating them on the importance of medication adherence. That’s where our second content piece comes in.

Interactive content can do well to educate and motivate health consumers to follow through on their prescriptions. In this series of interactive activities, members gain important knowledge on why and how to follow this critically important part of their care plans – all easily integrated into med adherence and medication management campaigns.

When the member or patient arrives at the interactive content, they can decide which barrier or medication type applies to them and read through the information at their own pace skipping anything they don’t feel addresses their specific situation. And a program like this with content infused has been shown to increase refill rates by 14%!

Interactive health content example to educate and motivate health consumers to follow through on their prescriptions

Using Animations to Educate on the Proper Use of the ER

A recent study from UnitedHealth Group estimated that members going to the emergency room for non-emergencies costs the health system $32 billion annually. Ouch.

But a short video on the proper use of urgent care versus emergency rooms is an excellent example of utilizing animations to educate your health consumers. Able to be sent through text or email or placed on a website or portal, animations are a fun and engaging way to educate. This animation is a prime example of education leading to reduced cost and better healthcare decisions for both the member and the plan, and it’s also highly likely to get your members chuckling. Watch the below animation to see what we mean!

In Part 2…

Health content is aimed at driving healthy actions and educating someone on why those actions should be taken. It addresses health literacy at the same time as it enables plans and providers to reach their own goals.

In part 2, we’ll tackle the next four ways to integrate content into your outreach: lessons, expert-led courses, self-assessments, and stories.

Shifting the Mindset: How Health Plans Can View Members as Consumers in a Digital-First World

Posted on by Nicole Lopez

What can health plans learn from the retail industry’s success with consumer engagement?  

A lot, it turns out. Leading retail organizations have been using important digital-first principles for a couple of decades now. This approach has not only transformed the expectations of everyday consumers for all organizations they encounter (including healthcare) but has also driven profits through the roof for these companies.  

Take a moment to think about it. When you sign into Amazon, everything you experience as an end user is seamless and customized. From the presentation of personalized recommendations on your homepage (which is different for every customer) to the fast and easy delivery of your items. It’s all frictionless and crafted for the consumer. 

Where does this leave healthcare? Well, even though health plans are not direct competitors of Amazon (or even in the same industry), their members live in an Amazon world and now have expectations set for this kind of consumer experience across all areas of their lives – food delivery, online retail, and yes, healthcare. The challenge for healthcare organizations now becomes leveling up to those expectations and harnessing these digital-first principles to improve their members’ experiences and inspire healthy behaviors. 

From Members to Consumers: How plans are adopting popular digital trends from leading consumer brands to drive better health outcomes » 

The first step toward that goal is understanding that members are no longer just members. They have become fully-fledged consumers of healthcare services and treating them as such is a critical way for plans to be competitive in a digital-first world. 

Beyond the Consumer Mindset: Implementing a Digital-First Experience 

Simply shifting your view of your members to consumers, however, is not enough. There are significant foundational and technological changes that must be implemented to truly realize this concept and transform the experience. 

  • Using Data to Customize the User Experience – Without data, customizing the experience in this way is impossible. Plans have more data at their disposal than you might think, though. From claims data and satisfaction surveys to engagement data from previous communications programs, it can all be leveraged to customize the experience. This results in tailored tools and resources at every point across their unique journey.  
  • Streaming Health Content – 5% of all Google searches are for health information. That is a lot of people turning to the internet for health education instead of their plan or provider. That also highlights the fact that health literacy is a prevalent issue and a contributing factor to inaction among members. Plans are in a unique position to increase health literacy by providing health education to their consumers with commercial quality streaming health content to sustain engagement, deliver the information that consumer needs at that point in time, and ultimately drive healthier actions at scale. 
  • An Omnichannel Approach – Combining an omnichannel approach with orchestration of resources and channels helps plans reach members in the way they prefer while allowing plan investments to perform with higher results and efficacy. Using a combination of 1 on 1 care coordination, interactive voice response (IVR), mobile web, resource triaging through AI short message service (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS) and rich communication services (RCS) channels are a few examples of digital ways to engage and activate more consumers. 
  • Behavior Science and Conversational AI – Behavior science is a foundational tool for large tech companies to drive specific behaviors in their consumers and ignite growth. It’s healthcare’s time now to take from those lessons and apply them to the health of their members. Health programs and services that seek to understand the intricacies of human behavior and leverage these techniques will significantly increase engagement. 

Want the full version of this content? Access the complete white paper, From Members to Consumers » 

The Members to Consumers White Paper 

By implementing digital trends that drive engagement in the retail landscape, health plans can replicate this success for their population. Leading brands have had to continually stay aligned to trends and keep a high-touch strategy in place to drive sales. Health organizations are in a unique position to leverage consumer insights to refine their strategy, inspire consumers to take action, and lower costs, because unlike Apple or Amazon, health is a necessity. Ensuring your health consumers continually have a positive experience and adopt healthier behaviors based on their individual health needs is critical to drive health outcomes.  

This article gives just a peek into the ways health plans can serve that experience to their members. To get the full version of this content, including case studies from plans who have implemented digital-first techniques, download the white paper, From Members to Consumers: How plans are adopting popular digital trends from leading consumer brands to drive better health outcomes.

The Future of Health Literacy

Posted on by mPulse Team

In a world where health information is abundant yet often complex, understanding how to improve health literacy is crucial. Health literacy is more than just the ability to read medical pamphlets; it’s about understanding and utilizing health information to make informed decisions and follow treatment plans effectively. The importance of health literacy cannot be overstated, especially considering its impact on healthcare outcomes and costs in the US.

The Health Action Council aptly notes, “Health literacy is key to lowering healthcare costs, and better education is the key to health literacy.” This statement highlights the need to promote health literacy at every opportunity. From Googling symptoms before a doctor’s appointment to discussing healthcare decisions with trusted individuals, every interaction is a potential learning moment that healthcare providers can own and enhance.

Yet, despite recognizing the importance of health literacy in the US, many educational efforts remain dry and clinical, failing to engage modern health consumers effectively. With the rapid growth of the digital health engagement market, there is an urgent need for innovative strategies that captivate, educate, and activate health consumers through trending digital mediums.

Our article will explore three key digital health trends — captivating video content, engaging experts, and personalized community programs — and discuss how healthcare organizations can harness these trends to significantly improve health literacy. Join us in redefining health education and engagement in the digital era with mPulse Mobile’s cutting-edge approach.

What is health literacy?

Health literacy involves acquiring, understanding, and applying health information, enabling you to effectively make well-informed health decisions and adhere to treatment guidelines.

“Health literacy is key to lowering healthcare costs, and better education is the key to health literacy.” – Health Action Council.

You’re heading to the doctor. It’s time for that exam. You Google for quick answers before heading to your appointment. You see the doctor. They hand you a pamphlet and a few sheets of paper that you shove into a bag. When you get home, you text that person you trust. No, they didn’t go to medical school, but they always knew what to do.

Seizing learning moments to improve health literacy

By the year 2030, predictions indicate that the global corporate wellness market will surpass $100 billion, emphasizing the critical role of education in every health solution. Health leaders increasingly acknowledge that effective learning is essential at each step of behavioral change, particularly in addressing low health literacy. Despite significant investments, much of the current health education remains overly clinical and unengaging, aiming to inform rather than truly teach.

Traditional pamphlets, papers, and cluttered health portals filled with YouTube videos fall short of providing a real educational experience in this digital era. This presents a unique opportunity for healthcare to re-evaluate and revamp its approach to improving health literacy, moving away from outdated methods and towards more dynamic, engaging educational strategies.

The unhealthy state of digital health engagement

What do you do when health consumers don’t pay attention? If you’re most wellness programs, you hand out costly incentives in exchange for healthy actions (ex, $300 bucks to complete your annual physical). Meanwhile, telephone nursing and health coaching programs have high operational costs, highlighting the need for better self-directed options.

Because today’s health consumers want to get smart on their terms (and if we want them to learn to make smarter health decisions), we have to meet them where they are.

So how do we do that? How do we teach and guide them to the knowledge and progress they seek? To answer that, let’s look at some of the world’s most engaging digital products.

Embracing digital trends to improve health literacy in the US

Understanding the importance of health literacy is crucial in today’s healthcare landscape, especially in the US, where enhancing health literacy can lead to better health outcomes.

Here are three key digital trends that are transforming how to improve and promote health literacy:

1. Captivating with Video:

With video streaming services accounting for half of the global online time, it’s clear that well-produced videos in a structured, distraction-free environment are pivotal in holding viewers’ attention. This trend underscores the potential of video content to boost health literacy.

2. Educating with Engaging Experts:

The surge in online course enrollments – over five times that of total college enrollments in America – highlights a growing preference for learning from credible, entertaining sources. By leveraging podcasts, online videos, and courses led by appealing experts, healthcare providers can effectively educate and engage their audience.

Takeaway: From podcasts to online videos and courses, people show up to learn from experts with consumer appeal.

3. Activating with Community and Personalized Programs:

Programs like Peloton demonstrate the power of expert-led, community-supported experiences in inspiring real-life achievements. This trend reveals the value of communal learning and personalized programs in fostering health literacy.

By tapping into these digital trends, healthcare providers in the US can revolutionize their approach to health literacy, making it more engaging, accessible, and effective for their consumers.

How can you use these digital health trends to promote health literacy?

To effectively harness digital health trends and improve health literacy, the key lies in combining expertise in learning, content creation, and technology.

At mPulse Mobile, we’ve assembled an elite team of professionals in these domains to develop a comprehensive digital curriculum encompassing physical, financial, emotional, social, and career health. By developing strong partnerships with best-selling authors, TED speakers, and renowned physicians, we create custom and licensable health education content that rivals the engagement level of streaming television. 

Our advanced learning software supports a growing library of holistic health content, offering a quicker, more cost-effective route to enhance health literacy and engagement. This approach is designed to integrate seamlessly with your existing digital ecosystem, aligning with your brand and broader health programs and providing an innovative solution to improving health literacy.

Watch A Preview


 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 

 

 

Click for sound

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 

 

1:35

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

To learn more about mPulse’s digital health solutions and outcomes, Contact us at info@mpulse.com