May 08, 2023
With today's economic and social pressures, employees now have higher expectations from their work and benefits. They want more, and employers are feeling the pressure to rethink their strategy for attracting and retaining talent in a competitive labor market.
This shift is apparent in benefit strategies. Employees and their families are looking for more personalized and customized solutions to help them manage their health and well-being.
UnitedHealthcare is working to meet this need by helping employees make the most of their benefits, starting with customized information guides for new members. They're then encouraged to take a more active role in managing their health through easy-to-access online plan information, virtual care options, and the assistance of advocates who can help guide members to programs with convenient digital access through myUHC.com®, the UnitedHealthcare® app, or a care team.
To build a best-in-class member experience, a focus on making health care more personal with a simplified end-to-end approach can help members find quality care, manage health care costs, and deliver a whole-person approach.
Helping Members Find Quality Care
Laying the foundation to help members understand their health plan is an essential first step. This involves proactively bringing forward suggestions and insights to help them find quality, cost-effective care — whether a member called in with a benefits question or checked their claim status online.
Digital resources can help. New UnitedHealthcare members receive information to get started even before their plan's effective date. When they sign in to the member website, they can view personalized onboarding and claims videos. This one-stop, self-service resources includes a plan- and geographic-specific provider search tool to find quality network providers and areas of expertise, as well as personalized recommendations such as clinical and wellness programs, screenings, and more.
Virtual health solutions help provide broader access to care and convenience for employees. It has evolved beyond on-demand and primary care to additional areas such as health and well-being, and specialized areas of focus like diabetes management and physical therapy. Improvements and enhancements are ongoing, with new offerings intended to help solve some of health care's current challenges.
Progress is also being made by connecting virtual solutions with traditional care pathways and integrating solutions to help produce better outcomes and improve the overall member experience.
Managing Health Care Costs
Assisting employees as they navigate the health care system can help them get the most out of their benefits and remove frustration, creating a better member experience. UnitedHealthcare Advocacy solutions are built to offer more holistic support, with advocates working from a comprehensive dashboard detailing the employee's health profile, previous contacts, and how they've utilized the health system.
Advocates are also trained to listen for trigger words so they can assist employees and their families who may be struggling with behavioral health needs. Enhanced Advocacy models are also designed to deliver a more personalized end-to-end service for employees, including client-specific recording to show health outcomes from advocacy efforts.
Offering digital solutions is an essential step in improving the health care experience for employees and providers. These solutions provide crucial information at key decision-making moments — designed to help employees reduce their costs and avoid surprise medical bills.
Real-time transparency ensures members and their care providers are equipped to make more informed decisions based on real-time cost and coverage information, which benefits the employee's pocketbook and the employer's bottom line.
One way this happens is by integrating a patient's health record with their providers Electronic Medical Record (EMR) through UnitedHealthcare Point of Care Assist®. This gives providers access to real-time insights on care needs and the employee's specific benefits.
When providers make referrals, they can see a listing of designated physicians who have demonstrated their ability to deliver quality, cost-efficient care -- identified as part of the UnitedHealth Premium® program.
Delivering a Whole-Person Approach
When employers integrate medical benefits with pharmacy, behavioral health, and specialty benefits, it enables advocates to go beyond benefit and claims questions. For instance, integrated UnitedHealthcare medical and vision benefits helps connect members with chronic conditions to their primary care provider and disease management programs when concerns arise from an eye exam.
Analysts can look across very complicated data systems — including medical, pharmacy, advocacy, and clinical — and translate data into actionable insights. And they are finding key opportunities to improve the delivery of quality, cost-efficient care.
While personalization can mean suggesting an overdue wellness exam for some employees, for others it can translate to providing a greater level of support and a more holistic approach to care.
For families of children with special needs, the Special Needs Initiative® offers a single point of contact through the Family Engagement Center®. A dedicated team of multidisciplinary experts across UnitedHealthcare and Optum also helps families find specialty providers, manage claims and pre-authorization issues, and connect them to community resources.
For employees with complex health needs, the program works to transform their experience by coordinating care with providers and the health plan on the employee's behalf, and by supporting the employee and their family with one point of contact and Family Engagement Center resources.
Delivering a member experience designed to improve health outcomes requires a cohesive approach that fully addresses a member's needs — including medical, behavioral, financial, and social factors. And advocacy has the ability to bring it all together, putting the member at the center of care.
For more information about UnitedHealthcare's member resources or approach to simplifying the health care experience, contact your Amwins Connect Regional Sales Manager.
