Use Mobile Wellness To Gain Market Share On Individual Exchanges

As a result of the Affordable Care Act, each state is required to have an insurance exchange or marketplace where individuals can purchase health insurance.  The rise of individual health insurance marketplaces presents an opportunity for insurers to capture a new market of previously uninsured individuals.

With many insurers offering similar products on the insurance exchange, finding ways to differentiate from competitors will be essential.  Insurers will need to think beyond price and provider networks and find creative and innovative ways to differentiate and gain market share.

Wellness is a tool insurers can use to capture market share and differentiate from other competitors in the marketplace.  A properly designed wellness program encourages and rewards healthy behavior while simultaneously lowering health care costs – a win for consumers and a win for insurers.

Below are a few ways that an insurer can benefit from including an innovative mobile wellness program as a health plan feature:

Member Satisfaction
A wellness offering demonstrates a health plan’s alignment with member health.  Members will appreciate the opportunity to receive rewards for being healthy.

Big Data Care Management
Health insurers can leverage wellness data to provide real-time care management analytics to help manage members’ health and offer more robust, timely, and accurate services.

Lower Medical Expense For Health Plans and Consumers
Wellness programs can help improve the health of plan members by encouraging and rewarding members to track healthy activities through mobile apps.  Health plans benefit from healthy members who are less expensive to insure.

Attract The Elusive Young Adult Population
Insurers have had difficulty enticing young adults to purchase insurance on the individual market.  An innovative wellness program that leverages mobile smartphone technology will particularly resonate with a younger population.