The ACA has turned patients into health care consumers.
Whether they are looking for a plan on the public exchange or adjusting to the affordable plans offered by employers, more and more people are shopping for health insurance than ever before.
As a result, health care insurance providers have had to respond by shifting the way they market and target consumers directly.
"Consumers have the Amazon mentality," said Ryan Petrizzi, vice president of consumer marketing at Cranbury-based AmeriHealth New Jersey. "They are used to clicking a button on their phones and a package is delivered the next day. We've had to adopt best practices from other industries."
To this end, AmeriHealth increased the capabilities of its mobile app, including a real-time temporary ID card that's accessible on policyholders' mobile phones.
The company also launched a new website with easier functionality and navigation.
"We did consumer focus groups and asked how they were finding providers," Petrizzi said. "The majority responded that they were Googling it. We wanted to make the provider search experience on our website as similar to Google as possible."
AmeriHealth New Jersey also launched a Spanish language site and increased the number of Spanish-speaking customer service and sales representatives.
The company debuted television commercials this year for the first time in its more than 10-year history.
"When you are marketing to employers, your media for distributing that marketing is completely different," Petrizzi said. "The marketplace for the individual in New Jersey has increased significantly with the rollout of the ACA products in 2014," Petrizzi said. "From our perspective, we had to make the switch from interacting with employers to dealing directly with the consumer. Post-ACA, we've beefed up our overall consumer engagement and try to make dealing with the complexity of health insurance less stressful."
Because insurance companies are speaking directly to consumers, people are becoming more educated about their health care coverage.
According to Jim Lardiere, senior vice president of business development at Florham Park-based Savoy Associates, a general agent brokerage firm, that's a good thing.
"Public and private exchange technologies have, to an extent, begun to commoditize the purchase and selection of health insurance plans by individuals," Lardiere said. "Those who aren't knowledgeable of all the nuances of a health insurance plan - and that's most of the population - tend to migrate to the lowest-cost option available to them.
"Insurance carriers are more driven now to differentiate themselves in areas other than price, and that requires them to educate the end-user."
Petrizzi agrees that marketing directly to the consumer has been a good thing. Membership at AmeriHealth New Jersey (more than 60,000) is six times higher today than it was before the ACA.
And off-marketplace accounts for 30 percent of the individual plan customers, which is up from 20 percent last year.
"Because more people are coming to us this year over last year, that is a direct result of our advertising efforts, our grassroots community efforts, and improvements to technology," Petrizzi said.
E-mail to: dariam@njbiz.com
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