Managed care organizations - often blasted by the media's "horror stories" about blocked access to quality care - are fighting back with marketing campaigns which portray a different image.
Using a combination of patient testimonials and "real life" success stories, insurance companies are hoping to combat negative images with commercials that claim to offer "complete and accurate" pictures of health plans.
These campaigns are intensifying for fall open enrollment when millions of employees throughout the country are selecting HMO plans.
For example, Companion Healthcare, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina's (BCBSSC) health plan, launched its campaign late last month. The ads profile a cancer victim's improved quality of life, its prenatal care and show how asthma patients are avoiding the emergency room with effective at-home care.
And Aetna U.S. Healthcare is using member testimonials in its latest advertising effort, also launched late last month, to show how it "reaches out" to members to ensure they get high-quality healthcare coverage for some of the most difficult medical conditions, including breast cancer, bone cancer and genetic heart defects.
"The real people angle provides the truth behind HMO coverage," says Donna Thorne, BCBSSC's director of corporate communications for the region.
Companion's latest reality-based marketing approach replaces its image-oriented advertising focus last year. The ads will run during primetime shows and news programs through November. Thorne would not disclose the advertising budget for the campaign.
To back up the advertising claims in the three healthcare areas its commercials focus on, BCBSSC is providing its sales team with Companion's latest HEDIS (Health Plan Employer and Data Information Set) report that demonstrate the health plan's quality outcomes. For instance, 92.8 percent of its pregnant members received prenatal care in their first trimester.
Thorne believes that these kinds of quality performance indicators will eventually become more consumer-friendly and evolve into a type of "Consumer Reports" for the healthcare industry.(Check out Consumer Reports' healthcare quality findings on p. 1.)
On the national front, Aetna, based in Blue Bell, Pa., launched its campaign with patient testimonials that emphasize enhanced quality of life under the plan's coverage. The campaign includes TV, radio and print and features footage from several patients who overcame serious medical conditions.
The ads will run on primetime network television, national network programs like "60 Minutes" and "Nightline" and cable news channels like CNN and CNBC throughout the fall. (Aetna would not disclose its advertising expenditures for this campaign).
Aetna also is emphasizing to the media its positive patient outcomes in the last year to back up its advertising claims, such as providing coverage for:
- 253,00 births;
- 4.4 million pediatric immunizations; and
- 500,000 flu vaccinations.
(BCBSSC, Donna Thorne, 803/788-0222, ext. 42437; Aetna U.S. Healthcare, Stacey Jones, 212/512-0714)