With lower rates, Md. health exchange hopes for enrollment surge

The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange’s marketing strategy for the upcoming open enrollment period seems simple, considering historic rate decreases approved by regulators last week.

“I just think there’s only one message this year, and that’s that prices are down,” state Secretary of Health Robert “Bobby” Neall said last week at a meeting of the exchange’s board, which he chairs. “We ought to milk that as much as we can.”

Last week, Maryland Insurance Commissioner Al Redmer approved average rate decreases on the state’s individual market of about 13 percent, creating an opportunity for the state to stabilize the market. But a lot of that depends on increasing enrollment during the upcoming open enrollment period, 45 days between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15.

With a $3.3 million marketing budget, and about $1.8 million of that going toward paid media, the exchange hopes to entice people into the market.

The lower premiums will be an important part of the exchange’s messaging. But rates are only part of the story the exchange plans to tell.

“One of our main messages is that there is in-person help throughout the state,” said Betsy Plunkett, director of marketing and web strategies for the exchange. “We have hundreds of trained experts, both navigators and insurance brokers, who offer free help and understand health plans and how to enroll.”

Encouraging people to shop around may be just as important as the lower rates. Rates can vary across plans and products and in some cases whether it is bought on-exchange or off-exchange.

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, one of the state’s two individual market insurers, will also be encouraging their PPO plan members to take a look at whether a less expensive HMO plan would be a better fit for them.

In addition to offering help at the exchange, Maryland Health Connection also forwards consumers on to insurance brokers whose advice comes free.

“It’s a complicated topic,” Plunkett said. “Even though it’s easy to enroll on the phone and on the website, people don’t know exactly what they’re signing up for.”

Among the marketing departments top demographic targets this fall will be “Young Invincibles.” These young adults, between the ages of 18 and 34 may think health insurance is too costly for a product they do not think they need.

They are important to the individual health pools because they come with the lowest risk of racking up high claims. The marketing will attempt to persuade them it is important to get health insurance as well.

“We call them young invincibles because they don’t anticipate needing health insurance,” Plunkett said. “But anyone can have an unexpected illness or accident where they will need it, so we try to emphasize the value of having health insurance in that group.”

Some of the outreach to that group will include floor ads at grocery stores, trying to attract the attention of young people staring down at their phones and other shoppers checking grocery lists.

The exchange also will aim at reaching African-American and Hispanic groups as well as rural consumers, all of whom tend to be overrepresented among Maryland’s uninsured population. Advertising campaigns will include television, radio and digital buys.

Much of the push will begin after the election, when more advertising space is available.

The exchange also plans to use two weekends to create big pushes to get consumers to enroll. The first will be Beat the Rush weekend, Nov. 9-11. The second weekend, Dec. 7-9, will focus on the last chance to enroll before the deadline.

The exchange also has spent much of the last year doing research to try to make the Maryland Health Connection website easier to navigate and understand. That includes trying to help improve the insurance literacy that consumers might need to understand what plans they want to choose.