Virtual-first programs and digital patient education offer creative platforms for care management teams to overcome complex communication channels and extend their reach to isolated or busy members.
Care management: Understanding the need for expansion
Within a changing healthcare environment, payers are seeking innovative ways to improve their scores and member satisfaction. This changing environment includes:
Disparities in healthcare
Despite advancements, significant disparities in access to healthcare persist across different regions.
Changing demographics
Aging populations, more isolated populations, and an increased prevalence of chronic diseases necessitate a shift in engagement tactics.
Technological evolution
Digital health technologies are maturing and expanding remote care management and monitoring.
Health Equity Index
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Health Equity Index is requiring health plans to work toward increasing all forms of accessibility to healthcare services and coverage.
Within payers, care managers – who represent a key opportunity for person-to-person connection with plan members – excel in this environment. However, as care management is typically a small team, their leadership is tasked with understanding how to scale efforts to deliver personalized experiences across broad member groups.
Care management leaders need to look for ways to expand their reach to connect with more members in diverse communities to ensure they have access to convenient, quality, equitable care. Not only do satisfaction scores depend on this, but actual member outcomes and loyalty are closely tied to how well each plan does this.
Nonetheless, the drive to reach more members is a long-held goal of most care management teams. Finding success in today, and tomorrow’s, healthcare landscape will require new approaches.