Member engagement strategies bring with them the potential for increased member retention, new enrollments, and stronger financial performance. But typical member engagement strategies rest on the assumption that members believe and actively listen to what their health plans are saying. The fact is, most members don’t trust their health plans.

The barrier to being a source of truth in members’ eyes is high and requires health plans to reimagine their member engagement strategies, starting with understanding what their members are thinking and why. Our research has narrowed this down to three key themes: immersion, passion, and activation.

In the below article, we outline our concept of "passion." To learn about the other concepts and dig into survey data that outlines why members don’t trust their health plans, download part one of our complimentary resource, Shattering the Member Engagement Myth.

Download the Briefing

Case Study: Learn how one health plan has partnered with Community Health Workers to build stronger relationships with their members

Consumers largely have negative to neutral feelings regarding their health plans. If consumers don’t have healthy relationships with their health plans, then plans won’t be able to influence member’s choices regarding potential health-related options.

Based on our research, we’ve broken down the issues with typical member engagement strategies into three main buckets: immersion, passion and activation.

The concept of “passion” relates to whether a member would describe their relationship with their health plan as either positive, neutral, or negative.

Individuals worry about their health. But, this high emotional connection with an individual’s sense of personal health does not translate to a positive emotional sentiment toward their health plan. In fact, emotions about health insurance often sway the other way.

A 2015 article published by Insurance Business America entitled,“America’s least-respected industries: How does insurance fare?” cites a Harris Poll that indicates only 7% of 2,250 respondents trusted their health plan. Further, when surveying individuals who have recently purchased health insurance, compared plans and learned more about coverage, we found that only a third of those informed individuals had a favorable opinion.

Health plan’s ability to overcome consumer’s feelings is critical to engagement efforts. However, there are few cases to demonstrate that health plans can reverse this to attain passionate levels of engagement.

“Passion” is a critical issue that our research indicates is key to better member engagement. To learn about the other themes, please download our resource: Shattering the Member Engagement Myth: Part One and learn why members don’t trust their health plans.

To learn more about what health plans can do to address these issues, download the next resource in this series: Shattering the Member Engagement Myth: Part Two and learn about our framework for moving from "engagement" to "behavior".