Do Employer Benefit teams need Internal Marketing Support?

I recently viewed a webinar by the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions on the topic of Employer Strategies: The Case for Adopting and Implementing Advanced Primary Care. This spurred marketing concepts within the narrow space of employer benefits and in particular - health insurance benefits. Admittedly, some of the insights may not be new concepts. I would love to get some feedback.

A Step Back to Recalibrate

In studying the Current State of US Health, it was evident by every metric imaginable that Americans are in a dire state of personal health.

While lamenting over the state of health of the average American, it has been noted in various forums in regards to consumption of ultra-process food, lack of exercise, poor sleep, etc. are making us the walking dead of illness, until we get "rejuvenated" through our sick care system. Clearly, this is less than ideal.

The average American's health journey is a costly one, as sick care is far more expensive than preventative care. This has become so evident in the cost of healthcare insurance rates that continue to escalate.

Every Company Is A Healthcare Company

I like the above tagline, "Every Company is a Healthcare Company", as health Insurance -is the second largest component of employee's compensation. According to a podcast from 2015, Harvard Business professor John A. Quelch framed it this way, "the wellness and health of all of the employees of the company bears on the productivity of that company and its success."

Here is the rub - rising health insurance premiums are outpacing both wages and inflation. This could be a concern for both employees and employers.

Per this article from earlier this year from Healthcare Dive -

Health insurance offered through employers represents the single largest source of coverage in the U.S. 

But premiums often rise faster than inflation and wage growth, frustrating employers who are on the hook for a large portion of climbing costs and putting increased financial pressure on families.

Insights from Employer Benefit Webinar

The webinar’s section by Scott Conard, MD provided a lens on bridging the aggregate of aforementioned health statistics of the US against a smaller population of health statistics of a major convenience store chain employees. More importantly, how employers can wrap their arms around a growing issue.

Segmentation of Employees

Clearly with a marketer's disposition, Conard segmented the employees of the business into four quadrants.

Low Risk/Low Cost – 50% of members that cost 5% of healthcare spend; typically younger members

Low Risk / High Cost – 1% of members; 5% of healthcare spend; accidents and unexpected health surprises

High Risk / Low Cost – 36% of members; 10% of healthcare spend; employees that are progressing into the very worn “average” American path of obesity, diabetes, and chronic illness. They are in this quadrant until they eventually “crossover” to the final upper right quadrant/

High Risk / High Cost - 13.6% of members; 80% of healthcare spend. These are the High Risk/Low Cost employees that fall perilously to medical events (due to obesity, chronic illness, etc.) that leads to the very costly sick care, as we know how the American healthcare system is designed.

Segmentation Value

The value of segmenting out employees into different groups provides the employer benefits team a better understanding of the needs of their employees.

This can help in multiple ways with more effective target strategies

(1) Retention - how to retain the Low Risk/Low Cost group from moving into the High Risk/Low Cost group.

(2) Target Messaging - how to use omnichannel marketing (e-mails, internal portal messaging, mail deliverables, apps) to encourage the High Risk/Low Cost employees the options to address weight loss, smoking cessation, mental health, etc. programs. The objective with this group is to prevent them from moving into the High Risk/High Cost segment.

(3) Product Development - By segmenting, employers can get a better understanding if retention and target messaging is effective or not. Blanketed offerings to all employees into one bucket does not allow (or makes it difficult) to measure whether or not a campaign is working for a particular segment. The data will get muddied. By learning about campaign success on various segments, employers can tweak their messaging and/or develop wellness apps that help to tailor to a segmented group.

Employee Health - Customer Journey

Finally, developing segmentation and personas, employer benefit teams can develop a customer journey map for each of the segments. By doing so, one can discover pain points, anticipate needs, improve communications, and better design solutions for each of the segments in an attempt to improve employee well being, health and cost.

Joseph W. Sunderman is an Intelligence Analyst/Strategist that is a student of understanding the Current State of the US Health and its impact for the next decade. I developed the thesis over several months for Directions Research Group.  Upon completion of boiling the ocean on the topic and created an impeccable deliverable, which can be found in my project section of my LinkedIn page.

 In the past, Joe spent seven years at medical device giant Ethicon (division of Johnson & Johnson) with the most recent role as US Regional Manager of Strategic Insights and Pricing.  In his seven years at JNJ, he received recognition for his servant leadership, where he was a stand out in performance by being a top 10% recipient of Encore and Inspire Awards over multiple years.  Dozens and dozens of accolades from contributors to senior leaders for his collaborative work.  Prior to Ethicon, Joe has had a wide variety of experiences in medical claims, banking, publishing, and retail.  He began his career at Schaeffer's Investment Research as a financial analyst, where he was ranked by Bridge Information Systems as one of the top 10 market analysts for three straight years for his commentary and stock picks found in Schaeffer's Daily Bulletin. Joe has been published in the Market Pulse Journal and Chartpoint and his market comments have been printed in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Dow Jones News Wire, and Reuters. Also, Joe has made appearances on Bloomberg television.