How Humanizing Healthcare Enables Future Health Plan Success

For health plans to become genuine advocates for their members, they must prioritize approaches that humanize the healthcare experience for consumers and address head-on the negative emotions that impact the ability of individuals to make smart, well-informed decisions about their care. 

An individual’s healthcare experience is deeply personal and highly emotional. Rather than being linear, a person’s healthcare journey is full of highs and lows depending on health status and outcomes.

According to McConnell-Kennedy et al. (2017), numerous emotional experiences “combine to form the basis of the patient’s health care journey,” and the more complex the journey, the greater the likelihood that these experiences “will play a part in weaving the fabric of the patient’s health care experience. “

The authors added that “risk factors or pressures from everyday life (e.g., financial stress, education levels, family structure and support)” are highly likely to “interact with trigger events to heighten the emotions experienced during an emotion episode.”

To deliver a truly consumer-focused experience, the healthcare industry must better manage patient emotions by humanizing interactions between stakeholders. In fact, providers are already engaged in efforts to educate clinicians about the importance of empathy and compassion in light of data that shows a vast majority of patients place a high value on these two qualities when evaluating their caregivers.

The time is now for health plans to do the same. And the process begins with understanding the aspects of the member experience where negative emotions run highest.

Reducing confusion, mitigating anxiety

Overall, today’s consumers report positive experiences and high levels of confidence in their experiences with the healthcare system.

Findings from a Zelis survey of 1,000 health plan members show that nearly 80 percent of respondents rate their healthcare experiences and levels of confidence as high overall. However, a sizeable portion of respondents report anxiety, uncertainty, and dread when describing their experiences choosing providers, knowing costs, and understanding statements and bills.

Digging deeper into the data illustrates the sources of these negative emotions — a lack of transparency and a scarcity of human interactions. Individual respondents reported fear about being able to afford health services often motivated them to avoid care. Anxiety around cost and affordability was further fueled by an inability to get assistance from an actual human to address their concerns, others observed. Unsurprisingly, respondents are seeking a healthcare experience where they are valued as individuals rather than costs, emphasizing that trust is the byproduct of being treated with respect and humanity.

Healthcare consumers have made clear what they do and don’t want. The challenge for health plans is to listen and respond appropriately. Given how consumerism has reshaped other industries, payers have access to best practices that have proven transformative in humanizing other important aspects of consumers’ lives.

Lessons learned from other industries

Consumers are emotionally motivated by a number of factors. In fact, an analysis of consumer emotions by intelligence firm Motista in Harvard Business Review identified more than 300 emotional motivators. However, several bubble up to the surface as high impact, several of which have implications for healthcare consumers and health plans:

Feel secure: Believe what they have today will be there tomorrow; pursue goals and dreams without worry

Enjoy a sense of well-being: Feel life measures up to expectations and balance has been achieved; seek a stress-free state without conflicts or threats.

Have confidence in the future: Perceive the future as better than the past; have a positive mental picture of what’s to come.

The banking industry has made great strides in making its customers feel secure, as evidenced by the ubiquity of online banking options and mobile applications to manage as well as spend their money over the years. According to the authors, a major bank increased credit card adoption by around 40% by targeting messaging to customers based on the latter’s emotional motivators.

Even more importantly, the authors describe the importance of helping consumers along an “emotional connection pathway” from unconnected to fully connected, revealing moving customers from highly satisfied to fully connected leads to the greatest return in terms of increased engagement, purchasing, and utilization.

Embracing consumer experience in healthcare

Consumer experiences with other industries can directly inform health plan strategies in myriad ways. Embracing multi-industry best practices is vital for payers to connect more meaningfully with members, according to Zelis Vice President of Product Innovation Madison Goldfischer.

“Other industries have much to teach healthcare about driving ongoing engagement with users by simplifying the language used for their products,” he explains. “Some great examples are how Google has provided ongoing engagement within their search function by gamifying things like reviews and crowdsourced search attributes gathered simultaneously to help other searchers. These are great ways of leveraging ongoing input levers to then drive additional engagement by using that data to drive engagement with other users.”

When implementing these lessons learned within healthcare, health plans must focus on transforming pain points into opportunities for supporting members through their challenges.

“Providing support and understanding is supercritical to members. Most healthcare is an emotionally exacting experience. To replace pain and confusion, there must be a like for like with support and clarity around how best to solve issues using all available communication channels,” Goldfischer stresses.

“There is an interesting dichotomy in tax products like TurboTax, which have done a great job at replacing the pain and anguish around tax time with simplicity and, to a certain degree, joy and clarity,” he adds.

By introducing personal touches across the healthcare consumer journey, health plans can deliver a unique and tailored experience members are increasingly growing accustomed to elsewhere in their lives.

“Health plans and providers can do some very simple things to make personalization a key feature of their work,” Goldfischer explains. “No one particularly likes paying for care, but making it easier — for example, breaking payments down into installments instead of large chunks — can easily boost satisfaction. American Express’s Pay It Plan It feature illustrates how successful something as basic as flexible payment offerings can drive greater engagement and satisfaction.”

At the end of the day, the health plans must counter the depersonalized experience that its previous approaches have contributed to. In many ways, doing so is instrumental to their future and their ability to remain competitive against existing and new consumer-friendly competitors.

“In effect, for health plans to keep pace — especially in an industry that will be increasingly dependent on differentiating experiences — they must invest significantly in human-centered design as well as resources that enable them to listen directly to members. Their success depends on their commitment to humanizing healthcare engagement itself through familiar experiences,” Goldfischer says.

Today’s healthcare consumers expect their health needs and expectations to be front and center. If health plans are to become advocates for their members, they must be willing to listen and respond to the evolving expectations of those they serve. Only then can payers unlock the door to deeper and more impactful engagement in the years ahead.

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About Zelis Member Empowerment

An empowered member is an engaged member.

Zelis helps payers increase member satisfaction and optimize the value of care through our member empowerment platform. Zelis has a unique focus on the member experience. Providing clarity, control, and guidance across their healthcare journey. From finding the right provider, confident cost estimates, incentives for care selection, compliant EOB solutions, guidance in understanding bills, to options for secure payments. 

To learn more and stay up to date on our newest research in the area of digitally empowering members, please click here.