Healthcare navigation is an excellent service for health plans of all types to provide for members. However, if you’re in the limited benefit medical plan category, you have even more reason to need healthcare navigation. If you’re unfamiliar with healthcare navigation, check out this blog first, and then come back to this one. Now, let’s dive in.

Adds value to your existing benefits.

As a limited benefit medical plan, it’s important that you give members the ability to get the most out of their benefit. Limited benefit does not have to mean limited value. Healthcare navigation is a great solution to add value to the benefits you already offer. Since you cover a set amount for medical care, it’s in the best interest of members and your retention/satisfaction goals to provide a way for members to shop for care. Healthcare navigation enables members to search-and-compare medical care based on transparent pricing, quality, and other criteria. When members know how much their LBMP covers, they can confidently shop for medical care that won’t go over their benefit amount, or at least limit any excess. Member are then making informed choices with few surprises rather than paying five times what they would have paid had they known the choices. This makes your offerings more appealing and will help to drive up member satisfaction and retention.

Makes healthcare easier for your members.

Understatement of the year: healthcare is complicated. Especially for the average American. Healthcare is so complicated in fact that a Commonwealth Fund survey reported that only 62% of insured adults were very or somewhat confident in their ability to afford health care. Fear of expensive medical bills are a huge problem when:

• One in four patients skip a medical treatment or follow-up appointment. 

• 18 percent of patients skip doses of medicine.

• 27 percent skip filling prescriptions altogether. 

By offering healthcare navigation, you can not only make it possible for members to know the cost of care and shop around, but also restore their confidence in healthcare. Offering this level of care will increase your member satisfaction and retention; in fact, health plans with healthcare navigation have an average Net Promoter Score of 56, which is much higher than the industry average of 27.

Differentiates you from competitors.

Beyond cost savings, independent healthcare navigation helps members with many of the aspects of healthcare that have become even more challenging over the past few years. Services can include finding a new doctor or specialist, scheduling an appointment, getting medical records transferred, or arranging transportation. Your health plan competition may be too stretched to help with these things, so when you provide this help, members will feel like they won the benefits lottery. 

Final thoughts.

For limited benefit medical plans, healthcare navigation is especially beneficial to ensure your members are getting the most out of their plans. Let’s say you provide a benefit of $1,000 for a particular medical expense. Most procedures have a wide range of pricing with the same or better care, but it is extraordinarily difficult to find out what the pricing is. Wouldn’t your member value their policy so much more if you could help them get the care they need for $900 instead of $3,000? That’s where healthcare navigation comes in. It saves money, effectively increasing the value of your existing benefits, improves members’ healthcare experiences, and sets you apart from competitors.