News Feature | August 4, 2014

Mobile Engagement A Viable Way To Engage Medicaid Patients

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Mobile Patient Engagement In Healthcare

Results from a joint pilot project reveal mobile technology is overwhelmingly accepted are Medicaid recipients.

Mobile health messaging company HealthCrowd released results from its joint pilot project with Healthfirst demonstrating that 86 percent of Medicaid recipients in Healthfirst’s member population regularly use mobile technology, making text messaging a good patient engagement platform.

The study – Healthfirst: Intelligent Mobile Message – a Viable Way to Engage Medicaid Members – found the Medicaid population is “very similar to the general U.S. population” with its mobile habits and ownership of smartphones resulting in a great potential to engage with the patient population exists.

The pilot program’s process outcomes revealed mobile messaging is a viable HEDIS outreach channel for Medicaid members. Leveraging HealthCrowd’s mobile messaging platform, Healthfirst was able to drive Medicaid members towards a desired action in a very short timeframe.

The study was instituted in 2013 when Healthfirst engaged HealthCrowd to assess the viability of intelligent mobile messaging (SMS) as a mainstream outreach and communications channel for its core population. The study was designed to assess, analyze, understand, and document the effectiveness of multiple outreach channels including postcards, buck slips in mailers, interactive voice response (IVR), email, and mobile (text) messaging , and further to discover if mobile (text) messaging campaigns improve performance across select child and maternal health HEDIS measures.

The study found, somewhat surprisingly, that Medicaid members are mobile. The study further found 86 percent of phone numbers supplied by Healthfirst’s member population were actually digital (cellular and VoIP-based), capable of sending and receiving text message, making the Medicaid population’s access to mobile communication very similar to the general U.S. population.

“During the two and a half month duration of the pilot program, the levels at which members were engaged is best expressed by the exceedingly high response rates and equally impressive low opt-out rates, further indicating members’ willingness, even eagerness, to communicate via mobile,” notes a release.

Other key findings include:

  • Engaging Medicaid beneficiaries is “most cost-effective via mobile.”
  • Medicaid members likely have a “high interest” in participating.
  • Respondents are more likely to “take desired behavior-changing action” versus those who were less responsive to mobile messaging.
  • Not-for-profit Healthfirst’s mobile platform proved to be a “viable mainstream” outreach channel toward actions in a short time frame.

The findings support the need for health plans to engage Medicaid patients through mobile means, from text messaging to mobile web and email to social and interactive voice. “By providing valuable and actionable insights, HealthCrowd’s mobile messaging platform is enabling Healthfirst to cost-effectively engage with our Medicaid beneficiaries in consistent, meaningful ways,” said Rebecca Schwietz, VP of Clinical Performance Management at Healthfirst.