The effects of inflation can be felt everywhere these days, from the gas pump to the grocery store to the doctor’s office. Rising costs are forcing consumers to make tough decisions.
That’s why engaging plan participants with point solutions is more important now than ever before. One we frequently like to recommend is Healthcare Bluebook. This innovative solution is designed to ease the pain of inflation and reward smart shoppers. In this product spotlight, we’ll look at how it works for plan participants and how easy it is to start getting engaged with Healthcare Bluebook.
Giving the green light to start saving
Comparison shopping for providers and facilities can be stressful for employees. Oftentimes, they’re not even aware a better price or quality experience might exist for medical procedures they need. Healthcare Bluebook makes it much simpler—even easy— to find high-quality care at a Fair Price™.
It starts with a red, yellow and green color-coded system that’s a breeze to understand. The data-backed search tool lets members easily search by procedure, facility or provider. They can see associated costs and quality rankings for anything they’re searching for. Results even help them determine how far facilities are from their home or office. Next, they just need to look for “green” ratings to find the highest quality care at the best price.
Even better, certain programs, such as Engagement Rewards, compensate members with an incentive bonus for choosing “green” providers.
Making it fun to engage
Even with effective tools at their disposal, it can often be a challenge to get members to utilize their health care benefits. Healthcare Bluebook has a few unique ways of tackling this. First, they make getting informed fun through gamification. Their interactive tool is fun to use and quick-course training videos are enjoyable, just like a game.
In addition, a best practices kit is available to help with communication to members. This has been shown to boost rates of engagement and return on investment.
Finally, there’s the tangible rewards component. Members can receive debit card rewards for making wise decisions related to their care. Under the Engagement Rewards model, there are over 400 eligible, searchable procedures with incentives ranging from $25 up to $1,500. Members receive their incentive for researching and scheduling eligible diagnostic procedures and surgeries, such as MRI, CT scan, sleep studies, biopsies and more.
Here are some examples of awards they can accumulate for making “green” selections:
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- Bone density scans: $25
- Breast biopsy: $150
- Cataract eye surgery: $150
- CT scans and MRIs: $100
- Ear tube placement: $350
- Echocardiogram: $75
- Mammogram (screening or diagnostic): $35
- Nasal septum repair: $350
- Outpatient orthopedic surgery (such as elbow, hip, knee or shoulder): $350
- Sleep study: $125
- Tonsillectomy or removal of adenoids: $350
- Total joint replacement (hip or knee): $700 to $1,000
- X-rays: $25
Is it hard to get started?
No, Healthcare Bluebook isn’t difficult to implement. And for members to get started, they’ll just need their laptop, computer or smartphone and a few minutes to spare.
Each time they search for care, they’ll be able see where they can have high-quality services performed at the lowest price. It’s also a good practice to make sure recommended facilities are in-network for optimal savings.
Word spreads quickly
One subtle, yet powerful, benefit of Healthcare Bluebook is how quickly word spreads amongst employees who’ve used it. And that’s not too surprising to us—because who doesn’t enjoy saving money?
Happy clients have commented just how fast this often happens. It only takes one satisfied employee to tell another how much they saved on a procedure—and word of mouth takes off from there. This is good news, since it can help the adoption rate grow organically, with very little effort. Combined with the intuitive ease of use and incredible search capabilities—before you know it, you may just have a winner on your hands.
A few key takeaways
Effects of inflation are making it more important than ever for consumers to spend their dollars wisely. Healthcare Bluebook makes it simple and fun for health plan participants to do that. Plus, they can be rewarded for their smarter choices, limiting overspending for the care they need.
Over time, choosing high-value care has significant ripple effects. So, getting engaged with Healthcare Bluebook means:
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- Participants have fun shopping for care.
- They earn money to offset costs.
- Satisfaction with benefits and overall care increases.
- Quality of care goes up.
- Medical spend goes down.
- Employees become more involved, highly educated consumers.
Talk to us to learn more
Healthcare Bluebook is just one of many point solutions we offer that can increase member engagement, while improving health care spend.
To get the full story—and see if this could be right for you—set up an appointment with your local Meritain Health representative.
