New populations do not have much experience with health insurance and are living with complex clinical and social conditions. Before health plans can address any of these these members' needs, they must be able to contact them—and that first step can be difficult.

Across the country, health plans are trying different methods to increase communication with high-risk, hard-to-reach members. Here, we offer six entry-level strategies to improve contact rates, as well as three advanced options.

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Health plans face two major challenges in communicating with members. First, low-income populations are often transient, leading to inaccurate addresses and phone numbers. Inaccurate contact information results in unanswered telephonic outreach and undelivered mass mailings. Second, members do not want to hear from their health plans. In most cases, members would rather use cellular phone minutes to speak with their families. In other instances, members simply don’t trust health plans and are unresponsive to plan outreach.

A timely health risk assessment is a requirement for Medicaid plans, creating a compliance problem should contact rates be too low. Health plans face a clear clinical and financial imperative to improve communication with their hardest-to-reach members.

Nine Strategies to Improve Communication

Across the country, health plans are trying different methods to increase communication with high-risk, hard-to-reach members. Here we offer six entry-level strategies to improve contact rates, as well as three advanced options.

DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER