About The Project
We formed a partnership with a private marketing firm that was conducting market research on behalf of Health Insurance companies. The goal of the partnership was to develop a software application that would provide better market survey data about patients. The software we designed was a survey tool featuring an immersive and interactive simulation guiding prospective plan members through the new process of buying a health plan online on a health exchange.
This was when the Massachusetts exchange was in its infancy and just before the federal exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We contracted with several Blue Cross Blue Shield plans to develop a customized experience that featured their prospective plan designs against a set of hypothetical competitor plan designs using actual competitor branding.
We put together a very unique team for this project that required deep experience in plan design and how best to create the hypothetical competitive plans to gain the most insights. We also had some of our subject matter experts with foresight into how these online health exchanges were going to function, since they were not happening yet. We used team members from our marketing partners to help with the summary report and statistical analysis. We worked with the Health Plans Benefit Design and Marketing teams to create all the simulation data, and a full stack development team with programmers and quality specialists built the custom software to
The survey participants would simulate purchasing their health plan on an exchange, and then answer a set of follow up questions once the process was complete. The marketing results were summarized in an executive report we prepared and delivered to the health plan marketing teams.
Result/Outcome
The project was a success because everyone in the partnership worked together towards a common goal. All the stakeholders brought their invaluable expertise to the project and the results helped the Insurance Plans design better plans that incorporated the member feedback and suggestions and were better tailored to the unique needs of the members.
