MA Experts Point to Member Experience, Provider Contracting as Worthy Investments

For our annual series of outlook stories on the year ahead in Medicare Advantage, AIS Health, a division of MMIT, asked multiple experts what they view as MA organizations’ “keys to success” in 2024 and what critical investments will help them unlock their goals. Responses ranged from using artificial intelligence and other digital tools to improve the member experience to strategically striking value-based agreements with providers. 

“If health plans don’t do a good job of educating or empowering the members with information, then the member effort increases, which frequently leads to member churn,” observes Srikanth Lakshminarayanan, senior vice president of the Center of Excellence for Healthcare Engagement Services at Sagility, a tech-enabled business process firm that supports payers and providers. “With MA membership increasing literally day by day, it’s important for health plans to make a conscious effort at doing a good job on member onboarding and retention. People who come out of their commercial plan into a Medicare plan need handholding of a different kind. They often need to know how Medicare works, what’s the supplemental spend, etc.”