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Frictionless Healthcare: Fueling Behavior Change

Posted on by Eden Brownell

Have you ever wondered why Amazon provides its recommendations or why Netflix tailors your movie menu? It’s not because they must, dear readers. It’s because they know the power of behavioral science.

They both have behavioral science and psychology marketing teams working on the user experience and are uniquely aware of the constant barrage of advertisements and marketing that their consumers are being hit with throughout the day. People, including members we are trying to reach, see between 4k and 10k ads and make about 35,000 decisions every day. To complicate things further, 87% of information is subconsciously filtered. So, most of the time it can be next to impossible to get through to members.

So, you might be asking yourself what is behavioral science? And why does it matter for health communication?

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.

Behavioral science research is diverse and expansive. There is an abundance of work showing that human reasoning does not conform to what common sense predicts. Behavioral scientists study why people sometimes behave in a way that may not maximize their own well-being, such as making choices in the present that do not maximize their happiness in the future; examining how seemingly arbitrary contextual factors influence our decisions, beliefs, and attitudes or test how different incentives affect people’s motivation and behavior.

Learn more about using behavioral science in health communications by viewing our on-demand webinar, Frictionless Healthcare: Fueling Behavior Change »

So, readers, you might be asking yourself how do you apply these ideas in healthcare or health behavior change? If we really want to drive behavior change, we need to understand how people behave. When it comes down to it, there’s a lot of human behavior that we can explain in terms of two simple forces: Friction and Fuel. A rocket ship is a helpful metaphor that Dan Ariely uses to describe behavior change. To get a rocket ship moving, you need to increase fuel and decrease friction. To change behavior, you need to increase fuel (increasing motivation) and decrease friction (removing barriers). And it turns out, these concepts play out quite well in healthcare, so let’s examine that.

The Friction

In healthcare, frictions are anything that get in the way of your member performing a positive health behavior. Friction is typically caused by uncertainty on the part of your member. They could be uncertain about how hard an action will be, how long it will take, or how much it will cost.

Technology can go a long way to uncover and decrease friction.

One way is to employ barrier messages to uncover challenges (the friction) a member may be facing. Barrier messages are specific questions posed based on research of top barriers for specific audiences with specific health actions. Barriers happen. Why not proactively create opportunities to uncover and address them?

Once the barrier is discovered, we can work to solve it then drive motivation using proven behavior science techniques. You can see examples of those barrier messages below and observe how in a short phone screen you can do a lot to try to reduce barriers and increase motivation.

 

The Fuel

Speaking of motivation, fuel is anything that makes a positive health behavior more appealing. This could be member testimonials that utilize people copy the actions of others in an attempt to undertake behavior in a given situation) or an offering using incentives to activate the concept of reciprocity. Or you could utilize the endowment effect in messaging (an emotional bias that causes individuals to value an owned object higher, often irrationally, than its market value) like The Behavior Change for Good Initiative (BCFG) did to boost flu vaccine rates by up to 11%. The most powerful of these vaccination texts simply used ‘reserved for you’ messaging.

One of the ways we use these concepts is in stories or fotonovelas. This format is something members are used to seeing on social media, are they are quick and viewable on-the-go.

The Big Picture

Behavioral science can be tricky, but you can use the concept of friction and fuel to make a big difference in behavior change. This post was just an introduction to friction and fuel in healthcare, but we’ll be following up with a lot more information around the specific concepts and examples of each, so stay tuned for part 2!

2023 Star Ratings: Experience Reigns Supreme as Equity Waits in the Wings

Posted on by Reva Sheehan

To say the events of the last two years had an unprecedented and unconventional impact on health plans would be an understatement. Fast forward from March of 2020 through the better of logic within The Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Policy producing temporarily inflated 2022 Star Ratings to today. While we wait for either the end or extension of the current Public Health Emergency (PHE), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) continues to work tirelessly to further its pledge to put patients first in all programs.

To truly put patients first, however, you have to address their needs and provide support to the plans, practitioners, and communities who care for our most vulnerable populations. Back to the traditionally timed release of the 2023 Medicare Advantage and Part D Advance Notice Part II, CMS provided plan sponsors with a sneak peek at its next sizeable agenda with an emphasis equity! This takes me back to when we first read about proposed weight increased for CAHPS® and the other member experience measures. Back when it felt nearly impossible and so much more difficult than managing numerator compliance for HEDIS® and Adherence measures. But we started taking better care of our members and alas, here we are looking at all of those 4s in the weight column of 16 separate experience measures and hoping it all shakes out in favor and balances the expected deflation in post-pandemic performance metrics.

CAHPS® and the Member Experience

CMS makes good on its promise to lend a bigger voice to the beneficiary as it proceeds with the increased weight of its member experience measures, including the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans and Systems (CAHPS®) survey. The 2022  MA-PD CAHPS survey fielding began last week and I’m sure teams are eagerly awaiting even the earliest peek at performance from their survey vendors ahead of Westat reports later this summer while the rest of us will have to wait until public data becomes available in early October. Even the best and most robust regulatory and off-cycle surveys will only represent a small percentage of members at one moment in time. Plans need more experiential and real time data around common and frequently used benefits that scales not only the entire member population, but the entire member year. mPulse Mobile has developed an event-based check-in program that not only gathers valuable member experience and sentiment data, but also has the ability to address dissatisfaction and solve common pain points in real time using its patented natural language understanding and conversational messaging.

The Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Policy

As expected, The Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances Policy provided additional COVID-19 relief and over inflated performance numbers that will feel like a one-time get out of jail free card with the ‘better of logic’ that will not be in play for 2023 Star Ratings. This ‘better of’ method produced inflated performance numbers that will be difficult to sustain in future years. As experience continues to reign supreme, plans should prepare everyone from members to senior leadership for potential disruption and work to find ways to offset the potential loss of the one-time inflated bonus payments.

No new measures for 2023 and some moving to the display page

With no new measures for 2023 and some moving to the display page for a few years, plans will have the opportunity to continue efforts to close gaps, connect members to appropriate care, and review their data for another year. Controlling Blood Pressure makes its return to the active page with a 1x weight while Plan All Cause Readmission remains on display for one more year before returning with a 1x for 2024 Stars. Two key HOS measures, Improving or Maintaining Physical Health & Improving or Maintaining Mental Health will see their time on the display page for 2022 & 2023 as they were too disrupted by COVID-19.

HEDIS and Telehealth

HEDIS and Telehealth seem to be here to stay and work together. According to the American Journal of Managed Care, telehealth claim lines increased 3.060 percent nationally from October 2019 to October 2020. As members seek care outside of the traditional office setting, providers and payers still have a need and obligation to capture the full burden of illness and these updates include additional code sets to be allowed for measure inclusion or exclusion when captured via telehealth visits alone. This is just another example of how members, plans, and providers are embracing digital technologies. We’ll keep an eye on these flexibilities as the House recently extended virtual care flexibilities beyond the public health emergency.

Is Health Equity the new Experience?

CMS provided information on the potential development of five new equity related measures for Parts C and or D.

    • Driving Health Equity (Part C and D)
    • Stratified Reporting (Part C and D)
    • Health Equity Index (Part C and D)
    • Measure of Contract’s Assessment of Beneficiary Needs (Part C)
    • Screening and Referral to Services for Social Needs (Part C)

After two wild years of recycling data and rates due to COVID-19 to the temporarily over-inflated 2022 Part C & D Star Ratings due to the expansive extreme and uncontrollable circumstances policy, 2023 proposed changes seem to be minimal and mild in comparison. The last handful of years have had plans focusing heavily on improving their member experience with 2023 Stars rounding out the increased weights from 1.5x to 4x. Accounting for just over 50% of the plan’s overall Star Ratings weight, experience will remain top of focus for the foreseeable future. But no time to get comfortable because equity and social determinants are hot on experience’s heels with more than a handful of related measures and methodological enhancements. Proposed changes and new measure concepts must go through federal rulemaking and stabilize on the Display Page for a minimum of two years before becoming an active Star Ratings measure. mPulse Mobile has developed solutions to address and promote social determinants as well as stratify your member data within our engagement solutions to support and map to internal efforts.

It’s never too late to develop or enhance your member engagement strategy. How will you continue to wrap your arms around your members as we (hopefully) move from pandemic to endemic and beyond?

Activating Healthcare Consumer Behavior Change: Make it Personal

Posted on by Gabe Kratzer

Key takeaways from our interview with Solome Tibebu

In the last decade, behavioral health has grown from an ancillary service offering to a critical component of health services and care delivery. According to an OPEN MINDS Market Intelligence Report, spending on mental health services totaled $225 billion in 2019, up 52% from 2009. Companies like Talkspace and BetterHelp, founded in 2012 and 2013, recognized this spike and made it their mission to increase the availability and accessibility of mental health services to those struggling to access and navigate care. Behavioral health has continued to evolve, and it is incumbent on all healthcare organizations to adopt new methods of providing care to vulnerable populations. Learning from innovative companies and forward-thinking leaders is vital to building an effective care strategy for the one in five U.S. adults living with a mental illness.  

mPulse sat down with Solome Tibebu, a pioneer in behavioral health technology and innovation, whose passion stems from the care gaps that have existed and still remain in mental healthcare. At the early age of 16 years old, Tibebu started a non-profit online resource, Anxiety in Teens, to offer education and support for teens and young adults who were struggling with anxiety and depression. After ten years, she began working in startups and consulting, continuing to advocate for the role of technology in advancing behavioral healthcare. 

This year in June, Tibebu will be putting on her third annual Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech summit, a conference where health plans, providers, health systems, employers, investors and startups convene to discuss the evolving landscape of behavioral health. The virtual (for now) event is a great opportunity to share best practices for implementing digital resources and innovative technologies to improve access to mental health services. We are proud to be a sponsor for the second consecutive year, and we look forward to contributing to discussions around how healthcare organizations can implement solutions to tackle barriers and make mental healthcare more accessible for all.

Improving Access through Technology Innovation

COVID-19 created an array of challenges to advancing mental health access, but it also sparked a digital transformation that brought innovation to the center stage. With more consumers staying home, “tech has exploded as a response to the pandemic,” Tibebu prefaces. Technology plays an important role in understanding and addressing the social dynamics that affect each person living with mental illness. Some of the challenges that plague mental health accessibility require more than simple one-way consumer interactions, however. 

Talking about health plans, Tibebu emphasizes, “stigma is a huge barrier even after they’ve procured some kind of solution, so they need to have a strategy around how they’re gonna address stigma, and engagement of the member.” Stigma can produce feelings of worthlessness and lead to social isolation while social determinants of health (SDOH) like transportation access or income level can prevent consumers from seeking care. To tackle barriers like SDOH and stigma, it is necessary to utilize technology to understand consumer needs and preferences. 

Conversational AI and Natural Language Understanding power the capability to deploy behavioral science strategies at scale when communicating with vulnerable populations. For instance, incorporating a strategy like Affect ensures that messaging is based in empathy, increasing motivation to engage with sensitive healthcare outreach. Social Proof is an effective strategy that helps assure consumers that they are not alone and can help reduce social isolation caused by mental health stigma.  

Applying behavioral science and identifying SDOH in conversational outreach enables a deeper understanding of consumers. Once individual preferences are captured, healthcare organizations can efficiently tailor relevant content to each consumer and activate meaningful behavior change. 

Delivering Tailored Content at Scale

Incorporating clinically validated behavior change techniques helps with understanding the needs and preferences of consumers. Tibebu asks, “now all of these payers have implemented their telehealth solution but it’s the next level – how do we get something more customized, personalized to their respective populations?”  

Plans and providers can drive deeper engagement and self-efficacy by adopting tailored engagement strategies that lift utilization of the programs they’ve invested in. Conversational AI enables the orchestration of programs and resource delivery across preferred consumer channels. Natural Language Understanding helps capture important data from consumer responses to help route them to the appropriate digital resource. 

A one-size-fits-all care model fails to meet the needs of each consumer, while customization empowers healthcare organizations to intervene with meaningful content that drives behavior change. “How can you identify the consumer’s need and triage them to the right end solution?” Tibebu reiterates. Certain individuals who prefer a visual learning experience may benefit from a course like Living with Anxiety & Depression, while those who respond better to audio can be directed to a podcast like Mental Health Matters. 

Providing on-demand, curated content can motivate consumers to take control of their health and execute healthier behaviors, leading to improved outcomes and a better consumer experience.

Impacting Beyond Mental Health

We asked Tibebu why personalization in mental healthcare should be important to payers specifically. She responded, “because mental health is at the vortex of all health…for all of these other conditions, expensive conditions, that are impacted as a result of poor mental health.” Consumers who are negatively affected by mental health are more likely to develop chronic conditions, which piles up costs for both the consumer and the organization providing services. This creates an opportunity for plans and providers to adopt innovative solutions that promote well-being through tailored engagement. 

MagellanRx Management serves a complex population and recognized the need to incorporate well-being content for their members who were experiencing loneliness and anxiety from COVID-19. They partnered with mPulse to deploy digital fotonovelas, which use culturally sensitive stories in a comic-strip format to improve health education and activate diverse populations. The program drove impressive outcomes, yielding over a 38% engagement rate and a 90% member satisfaction score. 

We questioned how organizations outside of payers and providers can “step up” to make mental healthcare more accessible. Walmart Wellness is a nationally recognized brand whose goal is to “help customers raise their hand and more easily access their hubs,” Tibebu clarifies. Walmart partnered with mPulse to implement SMS solutions along with streaming health education to drive their customers to the right well-being resources. The program included custom learning plans across several wellness topics and produced significant improvements in customer engagement. 

After chatting with Tibebu, we are reassured that mental healthcare should be the focal point of an effective engagement strategy. Innovative companies can promote mental well-being and health literacy by leveraging technology that personalizes outreach. Educating consumers with tailored content through timely and convenient engagement builds self-efficacy and lasting behavior change.

Learn more about Conversational AI and streaming health education here. 

 

CareSource Activates Hard-to-Reach Members with Conversational Outreach and Streaming Content

Posted on by Gabe Kratzer

COVID-19 Accelerating Digital Engagement

It is no secret that COVID-19 has changed the way healthcare communication is delivered to consumers. The uncertain nature of the pandemic has forced healthcare organizations to incorporate digital strategies to continuously update their members on important COVID-19 information. Just this year, health plans have had to respond to the new mandate requiring reimbursements for at-home COVID-19 tests.  

Gaps remain in other facets of COVID-19 communication, like driving behavior change to increase vaccinations. Across the country, states are seeing lower vaccination rates among Medicaid beneficiaries. In California, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) released a January 2022 report indicating that 81% of the general population had received one dose of a COVID vaccine compared to only 54% of Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) beneficiaries. Significant disparities in vaccination completion such has this have developed in states beyond California as well. 

CareSource, an Ohio-based managed care plan offering insurance coverage to vulnerable populations across five states, recognized a similar disparity in their diverse member population and sought a solution. Traditional methods of engaging members had failed to produce desired results, creating an opportunity to incorporate a new approach in their outreach efforts. The plan partnered with us to implement conversational outreach and streaming health education into their COVID-19 vaccine program strategy.  

Here’s some key takeaways from the program along with strategies that health plans can adopt to drive vaccine engagement.  

Strategies That Personalize Outreach

Delivering vital information about vaccines becomes more difficult when using a one-size-fits-all approach to communicating with vulnerable members. A successful COVID-19 outreach program requires personalized interactions with members to inspire healthier actions. CareSource identified a need to activate hard-to-reach consumers and sought a tool to tailor engagement based of range of factors including health beliefs. 

The plan leveraged our robust technology platform and Natural Language Understanding capabilities, which enabled tailored engagement through 25 SMS workflows, 1 Secure Survey, and 1 streaming video.  

We helped deploy SMS surveys to assess individual vaccine readiness levels, and members were assigned one of three personas based on their responses: Ready, Unsure, and Nonbeliever. Developing personas enables plans to tailor messaging according to personalized interactions with members to inspire healthier actions each member’s preferences and self-reported barriers. Messaging must be intentional and sensitive to inspire paradigm shifts for unvaccinated members or members who have no plans to get vaccinated.

Behavior science informs every communication we send, and this program was no different. An effective behavioral science strategy in the CareSource program was giving members Social Proof, which comes from the Social Determination Theory and suggests that people are motivated by feelings of competence and relatedness. Through the texting channel, members were sent a streaming video, “My Why,” which highlights a diverse range of people explaining their personal reasons for getting vaccinated. Plans can inspire confidence and healthier actions just by making members feel as though they are not alone.

Another behavior science strategy employed in the program was Authority, which is using trusted health experts to improve education, drive health literacy and reduce barriers like misinformation. Using sources like the CDC can ease doubt and motivate members to reconsider personal health beliefs that may contribute to vaccine hesitancy.   

CareSource provided zip code data, which we used to further tailor conversations based on socioeconomic factors. Providing members with personalized, familiar interactions gives the member a voice and drives self-efficacy. 

By incorporating behavioral science and SDOH into their COVID-19 engagement strategy, CareSource was able to tailor conversations and streaming educational content at scale. Social determinants of health (SDOH) can play an integral role in tailoring messaging to each individual inspiring vaccine readiness. 

Innovation That Drives Outcomes

We sent a total of 4 million SMS messages and delivered over 3 million automated dialogues to 664,000 members. The program yielded nearly a 15% engagement rate, an increase from traditional rates of 8-10%. Of the members who received a first dose, 81% reported they would follow through to get a second dose. By the end of the program, 57,000 of the 107,000 “Unsure” members moved into the “Ready” persona. 

Each member response led to additional tailoring, with automated responses covering topics like variants, availability, cost, fear/anxiety, effectiveness, and side effects. Upon conducting 30-day and 90-day reviews of the program, common themes were uncovered within each member persona. Gathering insights from member interactions can help influence future vaccine engagement programs and ensure that each conversation is tailored to drive the best results. 

As companies focus on highly tailored engagement, scalable intelligent capabilities are required.  CareSource has demonstrated the potential for Conversational AI outreach and streaming health education to drive healthier actions and meaningful outcomes.

Member Communication for the Home COVID-19 Test Coverage Mandate and Other Rapid Response Programs

Posted on by Nora Cristobal

Beginning January 15th, the Biden Administration required health insurers to cover the costs of up to 8 at-home COVID-19 tests per month for their privately insured members. This not only helps reduce or eliminate up-front costs of Americans seeking an at-home solution to COVID-19 testing, but it also helps dull the pain points of finding testing facilities when needed.

The mandate, which quickly became breaking news, was a welcome announcement for health care consumers, but it threatened to strain insurers who were given official notice just days prior to its effective date. In the last two weeks, we’ve heard from many of our healthcare partners about the challenges this presents during an already busy season. Plans found themselves in a difficult position needing to communicate as quickly and accurately as possible while maintaining their current programs and managing their open enrollment period (OEP).

Easy Rapid Roll-out Practices for Your Members and Organization

Between call-center re-routes, at-home test kit availabilities, and managing the member experience, staying agile after this announcement can become both overwhelming and costly. This is not the time to trial and error communication with your populations.

Relying on the methods you have already been using for member communication is your best bet in yet another unpredictable turn during the pandemic, and there are several distinct best practices plans can follow to handle unexpected situations like this as they arise.

To start, use the quickest and most impactful means of communication with your members first. 3.8 billion people own a smart phone and SMS is a reliable source of fast communication. If that line of communication is already set up with your population, connecting them with resources after any sudden event will be much simpler. The minimum data requirements we recommend for our at-home testing mandate outreach or similar programs are the member’s first and last name, date of birth, mobile phone number, and address.

Channels like SMS are ideal for reaching consumers quickly but implementing a multi-channel approach by including email and even IVR channels is an option, too. For example, using a consumer’s preferred method of outreach, like IVR, to authenticate mobile numbers and direct them to two-way automated workflows can be an effective tool, allowing your organization to provide cost saving information within hours while still utilizing all lines of preferred communication.

Whatever the channels you choose, we recommend providing comprehensive education and resources by redirecting consumers to trusted information sources, such as an interactive FAQs page or links to valuable sites like USPS How to find a test site. This reduces the chance of them calling their plan for information that is thorough and easily accessible elsewhere. In the case of this at-home test mandate, providing them information on their pharmacy or a link to all in-network pharmacies near them can also help the plan save money on reimbursement costs.

Orchestrating this outreach early and getting in front of the member with the correct messaging before they reach out to your call centers can help mitigate costs in any situation, but it can be especially helpful after the at-home mandate announcement. It will not only help ease the influx of calls to a costly call center, but it will also lead your membership to the resources they need to secure their at-home tests at a more reasonable cost to the plan.

Another rapid roll-out best practice we recommend is partnering with a solution provider which has the technology in place to quickly deploy two-way messaging at scale. The ability to have bi-directional conversations to address the specific questions of each member individually (ideally through natural language understanding technology) will significantly improve the efficacy of your program. And with this partnership in place, you won’t need to focus on setting up member communications in the middle of figuring out execution. You can lean on your solution provider to build and deploy the program for you.

Interested in learning more? Watch our on-demand webinar on at-home covid-19 mandate best practices and rapid response solutions »

The most important factor, however, is acting quickly. If your outreach provider has contingencies in place for last-minute events like this, they will most likely be able to stand up a solution that has all our best practice elements included in a timeframe of two to three weeks or less.

How Does This Fit Into the Member Journey?

Though communication surrounding this mandate is trickier than other rapid responses, swift messaging to member populations is still essential. When a health plan reacts quickly to market changes and provides helpful information to ease members and patients through a complicated and cumbersome process, they become trusted partners throughout that member’s journey. The right communications from a trusted authority, reduce the complexity this new mandate has presented, and others to come, and will prevent misinformation that members face. If your organization has a communications partner with experience standing up programs quickly, then it can feel easier on the member to get common questions answered, find vaccine sites, and submit claims, etc. – further reducing barriers to crucial and accurate information.

And with CAHPS right around the corner, what better timing to solidify that spot as your member’s trusted source of information that is preventative and timely? Further strengthening trusted relationship between plan and member.

Understanding your membership and leaning on the information you have, such as their preferred language, the channels your healthcare consumers use, and the right contact information will go far when your organization needs to pivot and deploy information timely and most efficiently.

COVID-19 Home Test Coverage Takeaways

If your organization is currently using SMS to outreach to your populations, you are in the perfect position to outreach quickly and at scale, and you only have to switch out standard messaging with the right messaging for the moment. An easy framework for rapid rollout solutions your organization has at the ready, is a sure-fire way to communicate all new breaking information.

Then working with your solution provider to craft the perfect messaging or leaning on your solution provider’s behavior science technology will impact how swiftly your organization can easily respond in moments when messaging is not able to take the priority–like we saw just a few weeks ago many other times throughout the pandemic. The focus can remain on execution while your automated solution provides your membership with what they need to feel like they can come to you for the most reliable trusted resources at any time.

mPulse Mobile Acquires HealthCrowd

Posted on by Nicole Lopez

We are coming together to drive our shared mission of improving health outcomes through market leading health engagement solutions. This is a very exciting day for both organizations as our teams combine to bring an unrivaled passion and deep expertise in delivering health engagement that unlocks enormous value for our healthcare customers. 

We are focused on reimagining health engagement, and HealthCrowd brings best-in-class health engagement expertise and leadership in the Medicaid market. 

“HealthCrowd has proven they can deliver effective engagement solutions to hard-to-reach individuals and communities,” said Chris Nicholson, CEO of mPulse Mobile. “By coming together, we combine mPulse’s unique conversational AI and rich streaming heath education capabilities with HealthCrowd’s engagement solution expertise to build highly tailored programs that put the consumer at the forefront of their health experience.” 

Unmatched Health Engagement Capabilities 

As one combined company, we have unmatched health engagement capabilities which enable us to deliver market leading solutions. We combine the power of our conversational AI platform, streaming health education and extensive team of industry experts—technical talent, engagement strategists, government programs subject matter experts, behavioral scientists, plus many more—to deliver solutions that transform the way healthcare organizations improve outcomes and the consumer experience. 

“Demand is surging from members seeking a tailored, consumer-first health experience,” said Neng Bing Doh, CEO of HealthCrowd. The combined strength will unlock enormous benefits for health plans, their members and the larger healthcare ecosystem. We’re thrilled to join the mPulse team and leverage our cultures and capabilities to work toward this shared mission.” 

Scale and Agility 

Together we partner with over 180 leading healthcare organizations and reach 100 million plan members and patients across the US. In 2022, we anticipate having more than 1 billion tailored meaningful touchpoints with consumers. We will continue to leverage HealthCrowd’s expertise across Government Programs, as together we now partner with plans that manage the lives of over 75% of Medicare Advantage enrollees and cover over 60% of beneficiaries in Medicaid HMO enrollment. 

What isn’t changing? Our commitment to being an innovative, agile organization that partners exceptionally closely with our customers to unlock as much value as possible though our health engagement solutions. Our (now larger) team of world-class engineers and industry experts will be the key to staying on the cutting-edge and delivering on great health engagement. Our dedication to the best possible outcomes for our clients through innovative, market leading solutions will continue to be our mission. 

There’s more… 

Even though the partnering of two major players in the healthcare space is substantial news on its own, we are also excited to announce that we have received a growth investment from PSG, a leading growth equity firm partnering with middle-market software and technology-enabled services companies. 

With this funding, we will have a greater ability to make significant moves in the market and invest back in our platform and team in ways that directly benefit our customers.  

These two new updates are key strategies that empower us to reimagine health engagement and drive us in our mission to improve health outcomes through market leading health engagement solutions.

View the full press release.

Recognizing Innovation in Healthcare at Activate2021

Posted on by Gabe Kratzer

We recently hosted our annual conference, Activate2021, which featured a keynote address from Nick Webb, healthcare futurist and best-selling author, along with a number of exciting sessions, panel discussions, and of course–Activate2021 Awards!

The Activate Awards shine a light on healthcare organizations who are delivering excellence in health engagement to meet and exceed the needs of an evolving healthcare landscape. Never has this proven to be more fitting than in the past year when organizations have had to alter their consumer outreach strategies in response to Covid-19. With the disruption caused by the pandemic, it is now more important than ever to address gaps in communication and low utilization of services. 

These companies demonstrated how innovative ways to activate their populations can improve access to healthcare and significantly enhance the consumer experience.

Winners were decided based on qualitative and quantitative results across five categories: Health Equity, Conversational AI, Innovation, Outcomes, and Consumer Experience. In case you missed it, we’ve recapped for you the ways these 6 different healthcare organizations are making a powerful impact on health engagement, health equity, and health outcomes.

CalOptima – Improving Health Equity

CalOptima is a large, county-based health system that offers health insurance for low-income residents of Orange County, California. The plan sought a solution to uncover barriers to getting the Covid-19 vaccine and to increase vaccinations of its diverse Medi-Cal population. CalOptima rolled out a Covid-19 vaccine engagement program across 6 languages that geo-targeted highly impacted groups and delivered over 1.4 million tailored messages to members. 389,648 members received vaccinations with health equity efforts among populations of color resulting in CalOptima’s Black Medi-Cal population reaching a 45% vaccination rate compared with only 40% of Black Medi-Cal members vaccinated statewide. Similarly, 56% of their Hispanic Medi-Cal members are vaccinated versus 54% of Hispanic Medi-Cal members statewide.

CareSource – Best Use of Conversational AI

CareSource is a health plan, headquartered in Ohio, dedicated to member-centric insurance coverage for its 2 million members. Looking to combat vaccine hesitancy, the plan implemented tailored SMS messaging, member surveys, and streaming health content to educate and uncover member barriers to getting the Covid-19 vaccine. The campaign delivered over 3 million automated tailored dialogues to 664,000 members, with members self-reporting as “Non-Believer,” “Unsure,” or “Ready.” By tailoring communication based on member preferences, CareSource was able to impact more than 650k members nationwide. At the end of the program, 57,000 out of 107,000 “Unsure” members moved into the “Ready” persona.

Magellan Rx Management – Most Innovative Program

Magellan Rx Management, part of Magellan Health, is a national pharmacy organization that serves complex populations. Magellan Rx engaged their specialty pharmacy members with two-way messaging and digital fotonovelas to address loneliness and anxiety experienced by their members during the pandemic. The use of fotonovelas was an innovative approach to deliver easily digestible and educational content in an engaging, story-based format that is relevant across diverse populations. After incorporating conversational dialogues and fotonovelas, the most impacted populations were younger members and members most impacted by social determinants of health. Overall, the program yielded over a 38% engagement rate to go along with a 90% member satisfaction score.

CountyCare Health Plan – Most Significant Outcome (tie)

CountyCare Health Plan is a large Medicaid managed care organization offering no-cost health insurance to eligible members in Cook County, Illinois. The plan wanted to uncover obstacles preventing members from getting vaccinated while increasing awareness and readiness. CountyCare launched a vaccine engagement program that targeted members significantly impacted by social determinants of health. The program utilized digital fotonovelas to address vaccine hesitancy and lift health literacy. After over 2.6 million tailored messages sent, 18% of members replied or clicked a link and 72% said they are more likely to get the vaccine.

Providence Health & Services – Most Significant Outcome (tie)

Providence Health & Services is a nonprofit health system, based in Washington, that operates in seven states and serves millions of individuals. The health system sought to increase sign-ups for their MyChart eCheck-in Program, which centralizes appointments, prescriptions, bills and other important patient resources all in one place. By partnering with mPulse and optimizing their patient engagement strategy, with the SMS solution, they grew patient activation rates from 9.9% in December 2020 to 27.4% by August 2021.

A leading Health Services provider – Most Improved Customer Experience

This organization is a nationally recognized leader in technology-enabled health services with over 100,000 employees worldwide. The company needed to transition a wellness coaching program from telephonic to a fully digital experience. A focus of the program included delivering a tailored, content experience that scales across populations. The health services company partnered with mPulse to build 11 custom content courses that drove 120k enrollments, and it yielded a 75% completion rate along with an average engagement rate of 51 minutes per enrollment. The organization used digital tools to deploy a robust program that kept their health consumers more engaged with their health content for a longer period and moved them into a space that allowed for more meaningful engagement in the future.

These 6 healthcare partners harnessed the value of innovative engagement solutions and streaming health education to positively impact their populations. The programs illustrate how rapidly health engagement is evolving to meet the needs of a shifting healthcare landscape and through adoption of new capabilities that create more meaningful touchpoints with members. For more information about the Activate Awards or any of the capabilities used in these programs please email us at info@mpulse.com.

About mPulse Mobile: mPulse Mobile is reimagining health engagement to inspire healthier lives and deeper relationships between healthcare organizations and their consumers. Healthcare’s leading Conversational AI platform combines with award-winning health education for the streaming age to deliver tailored educational health engagement that nurtures, educates, and activates healthcare consumers.

With more than a decade of experience, 125+ healthcare consumers and 500 million conversations annually, mPulse Mobile has the data, expertise and the solutions to drive healthy behavior change.

Closing Diabetes Care Gaps

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

Diabetes care often faces numerous challenges, including patient adherence to screenings and understanding of the condition’s implications. By recognizing these significant gaps and the barriers that prevent patients from taking crucial steps in their care, we can guide them toward becoming more proactive advocates for their health. Leveraging advanced tools like conversational AI for healthcare and Natural Language Understanding, mPulse uniquely supports each patient in navigating their diabetes journey, ensuring personalized and effective care.

We’ll discuss these solutions that bridge the gaps in diabetes care:

  • SMS Messaging: Using tailored conversations
  • IVR & Email: Catering to those with a landline
  • Streaming health content: video and podcast learning proven to educate your patients.

Background

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 34 million Americans have diabetes, and 88 million are prediabetic. Despite being one of the most common diseases in the U.S., it is still widely misunderstood. Providing education and resources to help those living with diabetes is critical to improving quality measures, managing diabetes, and preventing poor outcomes.

Adherence to diabetes medications alone reduces over 1 million emergency room visits annually, which accounts for approximately $8.3 billion in annual health spending.

Proper management of diabetes can be shown through data captured from routine blood work, A1c tests, specialist visits, prescription refills, and diabetic eye exam claims. However, many patients do not know they need to complete these visits or understand why they are important.

How to engage the hard-to-reach diabetes patients

You need to meet patients where they are. Through implementing a tailored omnichannel approach, you can engage with each patient in the ways they prefer while uncovering their barriers to care. This will help extend your reach, improve engagement at scale, and collect population insights to inform your enterprise strategy.

Each of your diabetes patients is on a different journey. Addressing the correct gaps and identifying each patient’s unique barriers will yield greater self-efficacy.

Using tailored health engagement to bridge gaps in diabetes care

SMS Messaging

Example:

Diane is a Type 1 Diabetic who is a new patient. Through SMS messaging, we can identify her barriers and provide her with care management to help support her and provide her with education on nutrition and resources to help her maintain routine care visits.

“At age 14, I was diagnosed with Type 1. My parents watched over and cared for me, but when I lived alone, I didn’t take care of my diabetes. I wasn’t checking my sugars and ate anything I wanted, whenever. I didn’t want to be the diabetic girl with her medical bag.” – Diane J. Type 1 Diabetic.

Interactive Voice Response and email

Example:

Charlotte is also a Type 1 Diabetic whose provided phone number is a landline. Through IVR and email, we can connect her to education on the importance of routine diabetic eye exams with a CTA (call-to-action) to schedule with her optometrist.

“I’ve been a type 1 diabetic for 30 years, and my hypo symptoms have changed. The first thing that happens is my vision starts to become abstract, and I have hallucinations; it’s terrifying! I don’t know if this is common or not cause it never used to happen to me during hypos.” – Charlotte L. Type 1 Diabetic.

mPulse, a digital health engagement solution provider, uses conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Understanding to fill gaps in diabetes care by overcoming barriers and providing the right support through the right channel to build trust with each of your patients. We deliver personalized interactions that inspire health literacy and behavior change over time.

The importance of health education and literacy

An essential part of building relationships with patients is providing more than appointment reminders, test results, and claims status updates. While tests and appointments are strong indicators that the patient is receiving recommended routine care, the management of diabetes goes beyond the doctor’s office. Living a healthy lifestyle with diabetes is just as essential as maintenance visits, especially when it comes to diet, exercise, and mental health. Investing in health and well-being resources, programs, and education throughout each patient’s health journey drives meaningful behavior change.

“People living with diabetes tend to focus on diet and meds (necessary, of course) that I think maybe we forget other important tools in this fight. I have found that stress, like an argument, financial worry, depression, etc., affects my bs. I’d love to hear some successful stress reducers that can help.” – Joey S. Type 2 Diabetic.

The Big Know is mPulse Mobile’s health education streaming solution. Our team of instructional writers and designers produces broadcast-quality content designed to inspire health literacy at scale. We leverage the expertise of nationally recognized health experts to teach video and podcast learning experiences that are proven to engage and educate your patients.

In addition to condition-specific content, we offer holistic well-being education that teaches the basics of living your healthiest life, with wide-ranging topics that include building resiliency, HSA planning, eating well, yoga, mental health, and more. Discover our content library by visiting The Big Know.

Dr. Reed Tuckson, a Doctor, Health Executive, and author, hosts our LiveWell Diabetes Podcast. In each podcast episode, he hosts a different health expert to discuss specific wellness topics related to managing diabetes, including eating well, movement, and understanding the science behind Type 2 Diabetes.

Listen to the podcast here: https://mpulse.thebigknow.com/home/audio-series/getbeing-podcast-livewell-diabetes/overview

Enroll in mPulse’s Newsletter to be notified when our Diabetes Essentials video series, taught.

by Ranelle Kirchner, launches in 2022.

Reimagining Health Engagement

mPulse Mobile partners with over 100 leading healthcare organizations and initiates 500+ million omnichannel conversations annually. As the leader in digital health solutions, including conversational AI, we help build relationships with your consumers that go beyond the transaction to inspire self-efficacy and health outcomes at scale.

Case Study: A1c Test Reminders

Client: Anonymous Health Plan

Goals: Encourage and remind Diabetic patients to get their monthly A1c Test to lower costs and increase self-efficacy and overall health.

Execution: Leverage SMS messaging to send tailored conversations to Diabetic patients overdue for their A1c test.

Outcome:

  • 29% Program Engagement
  • 32% of claims submitted were from previously un-engaged patients

Case Study: Insulin Rx Refills

Client: Anonymous Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Company

Goals: Increase conversion rate for diabetes insulin pump reorders.

Execution: Consumers reviewed and confirmed their supply reorder through SMS messaging and prior opt-in.

Outcomes:

  • 11pp increase in reorders after program optimization
  • ROI of >360%
  • 92% program opt-in

 

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

To learn more about how to prevent and manage diabetes, visit The American Diabetes Association Website.

Flu Season 2021-2022: New Challenges Require New Approaches

Posted on by Andrea Amelse

The rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation brings new challenges for engaging members around this year’s flu. Vaccinations are at the forefront of public health news, and with many Americans remaining hesitant or on the fence about receiving a COVID vaccine, it is more critical than ever to drive education around the simultaneous importance of flu vaccines, which may not be top of mind for healthcare consumers. Health plans and providers must take an agile approach to ensure individuals are empowered to make the best and most informed decisions for their overall health.

COVID-19 and the Flu: Lessons from Last Year

During the 2020-2021 flu season, the CDC reported that only .2% of respiratory specimens tested were positive for influenza, which was significantly lower than in previous years. In the past, we have seen anywhere from 26-30% of tests returning positive results. This decline is likely attributed to the increased health and safety measures that resulted from COVID-19, such as social distancing, face masks, washing hands, etc., and could also be the record number of influenza doses distributed in the US (193.8 million).  

Several other studies have found an interesting correlation: people who received the flu vaccine were less likely to experience major health complications from COVID-19, if infected.  

The importance of maintaining these healthy habits and vaccinating against the flu regardless of COVID vaccination status must be emphasized to members with thoughtful, coordinated education and outreach.  

Predictions and a Plan of Action 

Some experts propose that since we effectively “skipped” last year’s flu season, the 2021-2022 season could be much worse. We may not have been as exposed to these pathogens throughout the past year, so our immune defenses may be weaker, and as the country reopens, we may see a significant surge in respiratory viruses.   

The flu can be challenging to predict even without the added complication of a global pandemic, so it is difficult to say what it will look like this year. Additionally, restrictions and safety mandates change frequently due to the Delta variant surge and vary state by state, which will affect exposure.     

The only constant is change, and healthcare organizations must be ready to tackle new developments and challenges that will inevitably arise throughout the course of this year’s flu season.  

 Effective flu engagement solutions for 2021-2022 should: 

  • Address barriers and questions at the individual level around both COVID-19 and the flu
  • Proactively educate with several types of content to resonate with diverse populations 
  • Adjust programs in response to the latest information   
  • Understand individual needs and provide resources on the preferred channel   

Learn more about the mPulse Mobile Flu Engagement Solution Here >>

Reimagining CAHPS & HOS Engagement

Posted on by Reva Sheehan

When it comes to impacting and improving member experience measures, we can easily name more challenges than we can solutions. Blinded surveys, small sample sizes, black-out rules, and perception vs. reality are just a few of the historical challenges health plan partners have faced over the years. As if those weren’t enough, now we’re looking at new and increasingly difficult obstacles this year. Some challenges to keep in mind include the following:

  • 4x weighting for the 2022 CAHPS survey to round out the increased weighting for the member experience measures which will account for over 50% of 2023 Star Ratings. 
  • Recently released Westat reports revealed an upward trend in CAHPS cut-points making it even harder to attain and maintain top performance. 
  • The Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances policy which allows plans to use the higher of the current year or the previous year’s Star Rating is expected to leave over-inflated performance in its wake, which will be difficult to maintain over the next several Stars years. 
  • NCQA’s extension of its HOS black-out period from four to eight weeks before, during and after fielding left some plans in the lurch and forced them to pivot or scrap their planned outreach and educational strategies. 
  • The temporary removal of HOS’ two 3x weighted process measures, Improving or Maintaining Physical Health and Improving or Maintaining Mental Health from the active page and onto the Display page for both the 2022 and 2023 Star Rating years. While it might be welcomed as a breather, it should not be an opportunity to lose focus, but instead an opportunity to re-evaluate your overall HOS strategy.  

 CMS isn’t backing down on its promise to lend a bigger voice to the beneficiary and each year the Medicare population continues to embrace and adopt digital communication and technology. It’s time to ditch obsolete legacy outreach programs and reimagine CAHPS and HOS engagement using the modern innovative trends and technology your members interact with daily. What consumers expect from their favorite brands, they’ll expect from healthcare. 

 mPulse Mobile, the leader in Conversational AI solutions for the healthcare industry, drives improved health outcomes and business efficiencies by engaging individuals with tailored and meaningful dialogue. mPulse Mobile combines behavioral science, analytics and industry expertise that helps healthcare organizations activate their consumers to adopt health behaviors. 

 With over a decade of experience, 100+ healthcare customers and more than 400 million conversations annually, mPulse Mobile has the data, the expertise, and the solutions to support your CAHPS and HOS engagement strategy. 

 To ask a question or request a call, go to: mpulsemobile.com/contact