Healthcare Company Objectives: To Be Prettiest Pig On The Truck

A bit of disturbing research was recently published by Forrester showing that customer satisfaction of the health plan industry is poor and heading lower. Should that surprise anyone? No...not with prices rising, co-pays and deductibles increasing, and coverages more restrictive than ever. Here are some of the results from the Forrester research from Bruce Temkin in his blog "Customer Experience Matters":

In Forrester’s 2008 Customer Experience Index (CxPi), we ranked 113 companies across 12 industries. I recently published a snapshot of the health plan industry looking at the results from the eight plans on the list (Aetna, Anthem (BCBS), CIGNA, Kaiser, Medicaid, Medicare, TriCare, and United Healthcare). Here’s some of what we found:

--Experiences are “very poor” and getting worse. As a group, the eight health plans ended up with a “very poor” rating of 51%; the lowest score of any of the 12 industries we examined. Making matters worse, the industry dropped three percentage points from the 2007 CxPi results.

--Kaiser led the pack. With an “okay” score of 70%, Kaiser led all health plans. All of the other plans ended up with ratings of either “poor” or “very poor.”

--Medicaid is as bad as it gets. With a terrible rating of 38%, Medicaid was the lowest scoring plan. It also ended up in next to last place across all 113 organizations in our rankings.

--Only Kaiser improved. When we compared the 2008 results with those from 2007, only Kaiser showed an improvement. CIGNA and Medicaid, on the other hand, declined the most.
Some big shifts in CxPi components. There were five double-digit changes in the scores for the three underlying elements of the CxPi: Kaiser’s improvement in being easy to work with and enjoyability, Anthem’s decline in enjoyability, and both CIGNA’s and Medicaid’s drop in being easy to work with.

My view:

The Health Benefit industry is headed toward a cliff, with people paying a lot of money and not feeling like they are getting the service they are paying for. There are lots of reasons for dissatisfaction, many of which are not related to the service itself, but many are--such as the "easy to work with" category."

Service has not been a priority for these firms in the past. Controlling costs has been. I have heard management at healthcare companies say that their goal is to provide service that is just good enough, but not great, thinking it will be too expensive to provide service that makes clients/employees happy. The phrase "prettiest pig on the trust" describes their goal...not a lofty objective.

Further, health plans are viewed as marquee benefits for companies. Can you imagine spending millions on a "benefit" that no one is happy with? Companies will soon see that the money spent is not worth the aggravation, and look for other ways to provide coverage...like cheaper Consumer Directed Health Plans....or no coverage at all.

That is, unless a company, like Kaiser, steps up and shows you can provide service at a satisfactory way, and make the case that it benefits the company to have good service for its helathplans. There is clear opportunity for health benefit companies to step up here....and differentiate based on service....Perfect Service!