Payers can seize competitive advantages by delivering the digital interactions members crave.

Today’s health plan members not only want digital options, they’d like to use them to carry out more sophisticated interactions with their health plans, including managing their health and wellness. Health plans have yet to fully capitalize on their members’ wishes.

To assess the state of digital adoption among members, we launched a biennial survey of employer and individual health plan members in 2016, adding Medicare and Medicaid members in 2018. While members’ digital use has grown over the years, health plans can increase digital adoption rates with more effective marketing of existing tools and creating others to meet demand. The 2021 survey, conducted in partnership with HFS Research, canvassed more than 2,400 members of employer-sponsored plans, individual plans, and Medicare and Medicaid commercial health plans. The majority reported being in good to excellent health.

Here’s what they told us and the steps health payers can take to satisfy members’ need for more digital health plan and wellness management options. 

Read our white paper “Health consumers want digital: It’s time for health plans to deliver” and Digitally Cognizant Blog “How to build digital health plan tools that members will use".