Lindsay R. Resnick

home

authors

lindsay-r-resnick

Over the next five years about 20 million Americans will turn 65. Or put another way, a lot of people are becoming eligible for Medicare. Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) selling Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage products see these Boomers as the future for their growth. While Medicare’s Annual Enrollment Period and Open Enrollment Period remain important for attracting individuals seeking to switch plans, Medicare first timers represent the customer acquisition ‘brass ring’.

Attracting and enrolling consumers at the time of their first Medicare purchasing decision has big payoff. By taking them on a frictionless buying journey, activate them smoothly, and serve them well, Medicare plans can enjoy strong annual retention and realize significant customer LifeTime Value. But this may be easier said than done. Knowing when prospective Medicare customers turn 65 is basic ‘blocking & tackling’ for any savvy Medicare marketer. Knowing when they’re ready to buy is another story. What used to be ‘retirement at 65’ and enroll in Medicare is now a moving target. More and more Boomers are continuing to work and stay on their employer sponsored health plan until they are ready to retire.

Clearly, MCOs with Group and Individual business should have an advantage of capturing ‘same brand’ members with an internal cross-selling effort to convert them to their Medicare products. However, ‘should’ is the operative word here. According to Deft Research only one-third of Medicare enrollees went to a plan with their same Group or Individual commercial plan sponsor.

Over 25% of Americans ages 55 to 74 remain working. Projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics have this group growing to over 30% of the workforce by 2030. Certainly, the pandemic was a curveball to many retirement plans. Due to unexpected unemployment and loss of income, or simply the comfort of the new norm of work-from-home, many Boomers have decided to put off retirement. 

In recent years, however, there has been a noticeable trend toward retiring later that can be attributed to six factors:

Increased life expectancy (women: 86 & men: 83)

Concern about adequacy of retirement assets

Unanticipated health care costs in later years

New expenses for active aging and aging-in-place

Don’t forget about ‘never retirees’ – nearly one-quarter of Americans say they have no plans to retire. Retirement in the U.S. is getting more and more challenging with many impediments to a smooth, comfortable retirement: credit card debt, mortgage obligations, 401(k) volatility, inadequate savings, long-term care, illness and pandemics.

Today’s baby boomers are reaching retirement in worse financial shape compared to previous generations. Almost half of Boomers have failed to save for retirement, and of those that have savings, 28% have less than $10,000. There’s definitely ‘nest egg angst’ among today’s Boomers, especially when it comes to future healthcare costs. 

According to Fidelity Investments, a 65-year-old couple retiring today could need as much as $300,000 for healthcare and medical expenses in retirement, potentially taking upwards of 30% of their Social Security benefits. While 4-in-10 people believe Medicare will provide complete coverage for all their health care needs, it just isn’t so. Medicare may help pay for some health care costs in retirement, but it does not cover all of it. Of particular concern is long-term care.

Over the past 12 months Google Trends has seen the search term “health” appear in 10 times more Google search queries than the search term “retirement. “Blood pressure” has appeared in 14 times more than “annuity.” With approximately 85% of older adults having at least one chronic health condition and 60% have at least two, future health looms large with the Boomer audience, and any healthcare cost gaps down the road is an important consideration. Making the wrong Medicare insurance choice when first enrolling can not only be costly but may mean not being able to get the best plan later due to penalties or exclusions.

As Medicare MCOs troll the turning-65 consumer birthday databases, New-To-Medicare outreach usually begins 12-18 months out. In addition to introducing a plan’s offerings as a preferred solution for prospects’ Medicare needs, early in the outreach process is a good time to find out if they are really a qualified prospect. 

By using proven direct marketing tactics to encourage interaction with this target audience (in this case those working past age 65) you can leverage communications that establish and maintain an ongoing one-on-one relationship with prospective customers. It’s an opportunity to move into their lives as a valid, informative resource. Provide value, provoke action, and inspire confidence.

Here’s a classic direct response technique to consider:

: Attracting and engaging Medicare’s elusive ‘late retirees’ starts by asking one simple question: 

Are you planning to work past your 65th birthday?

 Take an approach built on strong yet carefully crafted language, keywords, and a welcoming tone to quickly capture attention and qualify your audience. Open the door to have a conversation and share an opinion or point of view, don’t make it about selling. It’s the beginning of a one-on-one relationship that’s all about them and their needs.

: This is the promised payoff for responding, a compelling reason to engage. It’s an offer of curated, relevant information to help prospects sort through something they care about, need, and see value: 

What’s my path to purchase of a Medicare plan if I’m working past my 65th birthday?

 Examples of offers for the ‘late retiree’ crowd may include:

A Financial Health Checklist for Working Past Your 65th Birthday

Stress-Free Retirement for the Non-Retired

Working Past Your 65th Birthday…Don’t Make These 5 Mistakes

Retirement Wellness: Social Security, Medicare and Pickleball

Entering the Medicare Maze After Your 65th Birthday

: This is a ‘tell it, don’t sell it’ moment to introduce your MCO and credentials as a resource offering relevant, valuable advice. Consumers’ perceptions and emotions have the greatest influence on their future actions. Take this opportunity to be relational, not transactional. Move from a promotional voice to one of an advocate. Make content personal, keep it simple and always answer the customer's question: 

: Provide clear direction for next steps when the audience reads or hears your message. Leverage data and insights on targeted customers to make sure to show up in their most preferred channels for discovery, interaction, and engagement. Activate an omnichannel mix not only to optimize marketing ROI, but to help assure continued engagement over the course of the late retiree’s decision process…."Wow, this company knows me and stays with me, why would I leave them."

Today’s perpetually connected Boomers are impatient and demanding. They cherish convenience and expect instant gratification from their most respected brands. They’re willing to respond directly from their device of choice, so be there when they need you. As Boomers approach retirement they consider wellness – both health and financial – a priority. Retirement isn’t the culmination of their life journey, it’s the beginning of their time to learn, enjoy, relax, and explore…a new chapter in life. Most importantly they want a secure retirement.

The emotion generated around ‘retirement’ can be a persuasive response driver, especially for those working beyond their 65th birthday. Late Medicare market entrants, usually coming off employer or individual commercial health coverage, are looking for help. They seek a reliable, accessible source so they can be informed buyers in their first (and hopefully last) Medicare coverage decision.

For most Boomers, Medicare is the first time buying health insurance on their own, without assistance from an HR department. Demonstrating you know what’s important to them, what truly matters, and what they need to make a smart decision will go a long way toward establishing a connection of mutual value. 

By proving you’re a dependable, consistent, and available resource, these prospects will keep coming back for more, but most importantly, when it comes time to purchase a plan, you’ll be their preferred option. Through sales-cycle nurturing and active advising you’ve created an empowered, loyal Medicare buyer.

Lindsay R. Resnick is executive vice president of Wunderman Thompson Health.

Articles

Tagged with the moniker "late retirees," this group of Medicare first-timers isn’t ready to call it quits. How can you help them? Find out below:

Some Consumers Over 65 Aren't Ready for Pickleball or Medicare

	Healthcare’s confluence of unknowns and erratic overtures coming out of Washington has stalled many healthcare biggest stakeholders-payer, provider, and pharma. Success in transformative, threatened markets requires companies to continually reassess strategic direction: anticipate and absorb change, generate situational-driven strategic insights, and act with deliberate speed. Healthcare leaders need to step back, ask tough questions, and manage through a new set of obstacles to capture opportunity.

	For healthcare marketers it’s a time to rethink basic assumptions, challenge institutional bias, breakdown silos, and force debate around longstanding approaches to marketing. Tomorrow’s marketers will be healthcare orchestra leaders. They will help set strategic pillars, sequence strategic execution, and lead go-to-market implementation that is results-driven and measurable.

	Following are six healthcare impact trends that will challenge marketers in the upcoming year.

Its healthcare’s Wild West as health insurers become providers and health providers become payers. With spending for hospital care and total private health insurance expenditures each topping $1 trillion, paying for and delivering health services is truly in a transition. Health insurers, are venturing into primary care centered delivery models, value or outcomes-based payment schemes, retail-type customer experiences, and innovative frameworks fostering prevention and wellness. Equally as robust is the trend of hospitals getting into the insurance business in an effort to take control of the complete patient lifecycle. We’re even seeing payer-provider collaboration and joint ventures get traction around value-based care, direct primary care, digital patient communities, and chronic or behavioral care management.

For healthcare marketers this is often unchartered territory. Insurers are used to looking at customers as members; hospitals look at them as patients. The marketing continuum of awareness to acquisition to experience to loyalty is very different for both sets of these customers. Each takes a diverse mix of brand, direct and content marketing, as well as customized customer experiences. For hospitals tackling the ‘business of insurance’, selling and retaining health plan members is very different from traditional hospital-patient marketing. Similarly, as insurers acquire or launch provider organizations, whether retail primary care, urgent-care clinics, or hospital service centers, marketing challenges such as service-line marketing, physician engagement, and community-based branding require new approaches.
		 

 At a time when one-in-three Americans say healthcare is the biggest financial burden they face, high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) have gone mainstream. HDHPs are approaching half of all employer-based coverage and almost all individual policies. This shifting financial burden creates an out-of-pocket ecosystem forcing consumers to take a close look at their healthcare budgets. It’s the fuel of the healthcare consumerism movement. Once consumers find themselves in control of spending health dollars out of their own wallets, you get their attention. However, buying healthcare services-from insurance to prescription drugs to routine check-ups to MRIs-in a ways similar to other consumer goods isn’t easy given health literacy disparities and inconsistent access to consumer-centric resources, plus…“Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated."

For healthcare marketers this means recognizing that retailization of healthcare is here to stay. In fact, 2017 may go down as the year of the ‘Amazonification of Healthcare’. Marketers cannot underestimate healthcare consumers’ willingness to comparison shop if it means they can save money. Shopping for healthcare may not be the same path-to-purchase as other necessities, but for most Americans it’s one of the most important buying decisions they make. They compare products and services, ask friends, read and publish reviews, price check, and quickly cast aside brand loyalty for a better deal. Being a smart healthcare shopper able to make confident, value-based choices isn’t easy. That’s where marketers can play a critical role: create reliable, understandable information and decision support tools to help consumers navigate healthcare’s massive maze of bureaucracy with confidence.

		 

Healthcare consumerism, a dilemma of health inertia. 

We live in a nation where 190 million people have at least one chronic condition. These patients account for 

. Still, most people believe they are significantly healthier than they are, lessening their interest in taking action to improve their health. Millions of dollars and countless hours are spent each year to try to get healthcare consumers to do what’s good for them. It’s a long, slow slog that sees only modest behavior change. It’s the dilemma of ‘health inertia’…getting people to face personal health challenges, adhere to a plan of action, and stay motivated to proactively deal with their health. Preferred healthcare brands are those that forge emotional relationships with consumers to motivate better health decisions…they’re brands that understand that nothing is more personal than someone’s health.

For healthcare marketers this means knowing what’s important to people, what truly matters to them and why they do what they do. Changing behavior takes moving away from company-centric educational-based efforts overloaded with clinical messaging about conditions and treatment options. Cognitive research shows that consumers’ perceptions and emotions have the greatest influence on their actions. To affect behavior change, marketers need to shift their orientation from education to inspiration, from features and functions to gut-level appeals that move people to act and engage. It’s about connecting across the customer lifecycle around personal, relevant motivations and deep, sometimes even unconscious desires, like freedom, happiness, personal goals, or the ability to be a better parent or partner.

		 

Social engagement is king and content is queen

 Social media cuts across every customer segment and every aspect of the customer relationship. 

 there are 452,000 tweets sent, 120 new LinkedIn accounts created, 46,200 Instagram posts, and 900,000 Facebook logins with more than 50% on a mobile device, according to 

. Healthcare companies are creating social communities to connect, collaborate and communicate with consumers. Patients are bonding with their network of providers, insurers are servicing their members, and population health management programs are deploying social apps for measuring, monitoring and tracking conditions. Inspiration is coming from healthy reward programs, community competitions, and gamification. And, patient-to-patient dialogue has never been greater through crowdsourced social health networks such as The Mighty, PatientsLikeMe, and CureTogether.

For healthcare marketers social media is a critical tool to extend reach and enhance engagement. More than 

 say they use social media to drive business and build their digital brand. Done well it boosts awareness, generates new business leads, and builds more intimate, connected customer relationships. Purpose-driven healthcare social media comes down to a brand’s respect for the importance of content. Today’s perpetually connected consumers are impatient. Their most valued brands engage with them in an evocative, relevant dialogue. They look for social media content that is shareable, fresh, unique, and above all, worth reading. Its compelling healthcare content that attracts their interest and holds their attention around a personalized, interactive value exchange.
		 

Truth be told, value-based care is a trend that has appeared in previous years, however as momentum continues to build, it needs to be highlighted once again. Pay-for-performance reimbursement-from basic risk sharing to accountable care organizations to bundled payments-are rapidly moving healthcare toward outcomes-based financing system. Incentives and disincentives based on quality of care and patient clinical results are the new normal. That said, moving from volume to value-based payment alone is not enough to bend healthcare’s cost curve. Payers and providers must add to the mix solutions to address social determinants of health, those circumstances that people are born into and live in that impact them as patients. While it complicates pay-for-performance, it’s critical to achieve the right balance between reimbursement schemes and social forces such as poverty, guns, violence, trauma, racism, and inadequate education.

For healthcare marketers the challenge is bringing key stakeholders along for the ride. Moving from traditional fee-for-service to value-based payment means answering the question “what’s in it for me?” Not only for patients, but equally as important are the providers of care responsible for living within the guardrails of high-performance, consumer-centric healthcare built on new models of financing, care delivery, and patient engagement, and measured on cost and quality of clinical outcomes. Marketers must use successes to demonstrate the 

 in value-based care, and use any failures as lessons learned

Innovation disruptively disrupting market disruptors.

 Innovation is sweeping across the healthcare landscape. Over the last six years there has been more than $18 billion invested in healthcare technology ventures with 

2017 going down as the largest year ever for digital health funding

. These companies, labeled HealthTech, MedTech, or FinTech, are seeking to reduce health expenditures, improve quality of life, introduce infrastructure efficiencies, increase individual productivity and extend life expectancy. Both startups and established companies alike are seeking to leverage technology to empower patients. Consumers are adopting and using technology to take ownership of their health, so it’s easier to self-diagnose a condition or symptom, change a health habit or behavior to reach a goal, enable compliance with a course of treatment, and interact with their community of care providers.

For healthcare marketers, innovation isn’t just a substitute for brand narrative or value proposition, it’s a means to an end. Simply stating ’we are an innovative company’ won’t cut it. The storyline has to read…we are an innovative company that delivers value to our customers, improves health outcomes and does it in a way that changes healthcare delivery. Entrepreneurs and risk-takers are making stunning advances in cancer, Alzheimer’s, population health, and wellness. And, they’re the agile innovators breaking down barriers with wearables, blockchain, artificial intelligence/AI, Internet of Things, and precision medicine. If storytelling is the new marketing, marketers will have a treasure trove of material to draw from in this era of digital health technology.

	Healthcare marketers have seen sweeping changes over the last few years. Gone are days where ‘product, price, place, and promotion’ is the ultimate marketing framework. As healthcare marketers face full-blown marketplace transformation, there’s a new priority: the need for marketing to have a power seat at the c-suite business strategy table. Why? 72% of CEOs believe the next three years will be more critical to their industry than the last 50 years-and the question is how many are ready, according to 

. Marketing can no longer take a functional or tactical focus, it has to expand its influence and integrate with leadership’s vision-driven corporate business strategy.

Lindsay R. Resnick, MHA, is executive vice president of 

. He is a frequent blogger, author and speaker on trends in healthcare, insurance, marketing and business strategy. He can be reached at lindsay.resnick@wunderman.com and followed on Twitter @ResnickLR

Here are six healthcare impact trends that will challenge marketers in the upcoming year.

Lindsay R. Resnick

Articles

Some Consumers Over 65 Aren't Ready for Pickleball or Medicare

Six healthcare marketing trends for 2018