Customer Relationship Metrics released a free webinar addressing issues that health insurance providers are facing in this era of healthcare reform.
Today, approximately 70 percent of Americans are insured through employers, while 30 percent buy their insurance privately or are not covered at all. Thanks to healthcare reform legislation, that number will likely be reversed within the next two years.
To prepare for this shift, health insurance companies need to quickly become much more customer-centric, to avoid skyrocketing operational costs. These costs will be passed on to consumers and have the potential to cause premiums to soar.
Since their main source of customer interactions is the call center, health insurance companies need to start preparing now for the inevitable influx of calls from customers who have never had to purchase their own insurance before. Waiting until these calls start to improve operations will mean losing business to other companies that have planned better for these changes.
In the webinar, Dee Kohler, former vice president of customer service for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Nebraska, discusses how the company is anticipating this coming deluge, and has begun preparing for it by exploring the transition from transactional-based reporting practices to experience-based metrics.
“It’s imperative that we move from traditional methods of concentrating on transactions, to looking at factors like whether issues are resolved on the first call. It’s all about looking at the relationship with the customer, and how easy it is for them to do business with us,” said Kohler.
“Health insurance providers are being faced with some unique challenges right now. While some will undoubtedly put off making changes until they can’t avoid it any longer, those that will be the leaders in the new world are starting to shift the way they work immediately.” – Jim Rembach Chief Spokesman Customer Relationship Metrics
“It’s really an issue of competitive advantages and avoidance – if you don’t become more customer-centric, your competitors will take your business, or the government will be all over you.”
This transformation touches every aspect of the organization and required analysis of numerous functional areas. The review was enabled by the business intelligence expertise of Customer Relationship Metrics’ CEO Dr. Jodie Monger. This webinar highlights best practices to be shared, as well as common points of failure to be avoided.
