Members are ready for the digital future but HICs are not: What needs to be done?

The vast majority (82%) of todays mobile health app publishers believe that health insurance companies should use apps to service their member base but their digital offering is far away from meeting this expectation. HICs need to better understand the benefits of a digital offering, and must change their approach to meet consumer expectations.

The mHealth App Developer Economics Study of 2016 draws attention to the paramount importance that HICs are playing, and will be playing in the immediate future. As the report reveals, HICs will become the second most important distribution channel for mHealth apps within the next five years.

Given their potential key role and position in the mobile health app market, one would expect HICs to do what they can to keep ahead of the field, and to beef up efforts for the best possible integration of digital technology. Are they “Ready or Not”? Well, they have so far not stepped up to the challenge. HICs are missing out on valuable opportunities to lower costs and to facilitate effectively preventive healthcare and health promotion. There is a current mismatch between apps managed by HICs and the kind of apps healthcare members would like to find when they sign into the app portfolios of their healthcare providers. While chronic-disease-management is for a good reason given it is the highest priority in the hierarchy of app use cases by HICs, it would be costly in the long term to deprioritize app use cases for maintaining health or for active health management.

The patient-based approach to healthcare might explain why health insurance members would so far only give the app portfolio managed by HICs a less than satisfactory 2.5-star rating. That HICs give practical issues such as “claim management” (31%) or the “doctor finder” locator service (25%) a higher priority than finding solutions for mHealth shows that they are not getting ahead in the transformation toward the digital future. It might come to bite them, for the future in healthcare is digital. Only a few companies integrate mobile health into their services. Finding such solutions would, however, be equally important to achieving improved health outcomes. Hardly a few health care customers are ready to make use of the possibilities that innovative mHealth technology offers, and many already use wearable health-tracking devices. According to mHealth practitioners, an overwhelming 82 % of health care members are looking for “active” rather than “passive” apps, i.e., apps that not only track and record data but also incentivize healthy behavior. Incentives arguably help to sustain the effort of physical exercise and a healthy diet.

The payoffs come in the form of cost reduction and cost avoidance. An incentives approach is thus inherently different from a marketing strategy such as a customer loyalty system used by other industries. The majority of members (53%) would be willing to share their data for a cheaper insurance plan, provided, of course, that their data is properly handled and protected.

Because a health insurance member is, after all, also a “customer,” the issue of customer satisfaction should matter (more). Continual quality improvement is vital in a competitive market. HICs should act quickly and make the necessary changes unless they are willing to lose their mHealth affine members (who are to be found across all age groups) to other insurance companies. So how to live up to what users really want from mHealth apps managed by HICs and rise to a 5-star rating?

Here are five “behavior changes” for health plans for a better market entry into the mobile health app market:

1. 1. Give up the passive wait and establish an approach by actively screening the app market for solutions that would be the best fit for the member base.
   2. Develop partnership models that fit to start ups and big payer organizations that allow a phased trial and error approach.

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1. Start integrating solutions/apps in waves to allow different internal departments to learn how to integrate these solutions for, i.e., disease management or into the insurance offer. The appointment of a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) to navigate, manage and execute the digital transformation might be a good initial organizational step.
2. Develop concepts to make mobile health apps (including the use of wearable health trackers) an integral part of a rewards/incentives program, and/or offer discounts on health insurance plans when health goals are met. Currently this may be tricky in some countries, but in five years’ time we can expect the barriers to come down. So why wait? There is no better type of company that is better positioned to link healthy behavior with financial rewards then payers (HICs). Why not use an app for that?
3. Establish an implementation monitoring system that enables fast reactions to unforeseen events — there will be many to deal with.

Health insurance companies should envision to have an app portfolio of fifty or so apps, not just two or three. There are too many use cases to limit their app portfolio size. HICs must speed up their slow adoption of this “not new anymore” channel.

Find out more about HICs in mobile health by downloading a free copy of the mHealth Developer Economics Report 2016. We are interested in how you see the role of the payer organization, and how it should evolve.