How to Proactively Connect with Medicaid Members | Part 1: The Case for Texting
For many Medicaid members, the inability to access and understand their benefits is a huge obstacle to finding the right care in a timely manner. And it’s no doubt a major reason why only 18 percent of Medicaid consumers feel “great” about their overall health and wellness. Given this, a key question arises:
What’s the best outreach strategy to connect with Medicaid consumers and help them find the care they need?
To answer that question, consider these statistics:
Contrary to a common misperception, Medicaid members are not digitally disconnected. In fact, 86 percent of Medicaid members own a smartphone.
The text read-rate among the general population is extraordinarily high at 98 percent! In contrast, the average open rate for email in healthcare is under 24 percent.
Compared to telephonic campaigns, text messaging is much more effective for outreach. Text messages are quick and easy to read: 95 percent are read within three minutes. In contrast, a telephone call can be time-consuming if the call is even answered. Eighty percent of Americans will not answer their cellphone when they do not recognize the number.
Finally, 85 percent of patients prefer text updates compared to email, phone calls or patient portal messages.
When you take into consideration all these factors, it’s clear that the best way to initially reach out and connect with Medicaid consumers is not through another app but by texting.
Be sure to check out our next blog, where we examine how Pager transformed this insight into a working reality and made texting an extremely effective communication tool with our app-free engagement technology.
Better yet, connect with us and learn how Pager’s virtual care platform combines concierge services with advanced technology to help patients navigate, coordinate, and access whole person healthcare — like having a “doctor in your family.”
