Bids for Medicare Advantage (MA) and standalone prescription drug plans (PDPs) have been submitted for the 2021 plan year. This was no small undertaking for health plans given the regulation changes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the work doesn't stop here as it’s now time to start planning for the 2021 plan year. For the Star Ratings team, it’s important to work with Medicare accountable leadership to determine a budget for 2021.
In the budget planning process, keep in mind that 2021 initiatives will need to be different to account for the increased weight of member experience measures. As stated in a previous post on Star changes, it’s time to switch from campaign-based initiatives to continuous member engagement. What made plans successful in the past is not what will make plans successful in the future.
Measuring Member Satisfaction
CMS announced that previous CAHPS results included in the 2020 Star Rating will be used for the 2021 Star Rating, which means plans are operating with member sentiment data from two years ago. For plans who implemented initiatives to improve member experience, it’s unclear if these initiatives produced positive results. Now more than ever, plans need to measure member satisfaction through a well-designed mock CAHPS survey. This data will provide crucial information to a plan regarding the member experience. From this data, plans can start implementing initiatives to improve the member experience for the 2021 plan year.
Importance of Partnerships
Traditionally, plans have relied on a mock CAHPS survey distributed through physical mailings and phone calls. These approaches are high-cost and inefficient, which limits the scalability of the mock surveys. As a result, most plans conducting a mock survey are only contacting a portion of their population. Transitioning to a digital survey distributed through digital communications is more scalable, efficient, and timely.
With digital surveys, irrelevant questions can be suppressed based on member responses. This creates a better experience for a member as they don’t have to flip the paper survey pages to skip non-applicable questions.
Additionally, digital surveys are scored and summed in real time, allowing for greater outreach to a plan’s population and quicker delivery of information to the plan. This allows plans to implement a mock CAHPS tool that’s cost-effective and more efficient.