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Evernorth brings the power of wonder and relentless

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innovation to create world class pharmacy, care, and

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benefit solutions.

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Barriers to care can lead to gaps in

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care, which can drive up the total cost

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of care. Our capabilities work seamlessly together to

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create innovative pharmacy care and benefit solutions for

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today and tomorrow.

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Our connected health services make the treatment, prediction,

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and prevention of health care's most complex conditions

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easier and more accessible as we drive organizations

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and people forward.

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This is Haley Recker with the Becker's Payer

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podcast, and we are recording live at the

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Becker's third annual spring pair issues roundtable.

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I am thrilled today to be joined by

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Sherry Johnson,

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vice president of member enrollment and billing at

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UCare.

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Sherry, thank you so much for being here

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with me today. Can you go ahead and

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tell us a little bit about yourself and

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your background? Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Hailey. I'm so

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excited to be here on my very first

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podcast.

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So let me tell you a little bit

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about UCare. UCare, we are a nonprofit

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regional health plan based out of Minneapolis,

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Minnesota.

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We have around 600,000

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members, and our lines of business include Medicare,

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Medicaid,

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and marketplace.

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And my role at UCare is leading what

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I like to call front end operations. So

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the member enrollment and premium billing teams are

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the teams that report to me.

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Well, awesome. Thank you so much for introducing

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that to us.

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So today, I wanna have a discussion about

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member satisfaction, which is essential to thrive in

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today's competitive health care landscape.

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So what experience or engagement strategies have proven

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effective for your organization, and how are you

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measuring success?

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Thanks for that question.

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Being in front end operations,

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it's really challenging

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because we are not in a space

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where we necessarily

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can positively

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impact the member experience. When someone enrolls, they

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expect that to go well.

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When they get their premium bill, they expect

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that to be right. So, sadly,

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oftentimes,

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we are in a position where we can

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negatively

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impact the experience

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more so than positively.

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So we have to look for different ways

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to listen to our members and take into

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consideration

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the things that they are asking for. And

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what I found has been most impactful

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is in the area

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of payment types.

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So we found a few years ago that

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our members really wanted to pay their premium

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by credit card, and they wanted to use

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American Express, which we didn't take at the

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time.

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I live in Minneapolis.

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That's a Delta hub. People wanted their Delta

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miles. And so we took that information, and

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we decided to offer American Express as a

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payment type.

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And in order to measure was that effective,

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we were able to look at how many

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people actually use that credit card, and it

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was not surprising, very high as people had

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asked for that. So that was a really

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nice,

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benefit.

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We also had a situation

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where people would call into customer service maybe

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the day their premium was due

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and ask to pay by phone. We did

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not have that option available for people.

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So we talked about it. We worked with

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our bank, and we implemented

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a pay by phone solution.

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And, again, we measured that by looking at

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how many people actually

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utilize that payment method.

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And we thought it would be quite small

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because the technology was a little clunky where

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you had to enter

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the credit card number and your member number

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and all of that. You had to enter

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it using the keypad. It didn't have a

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voice response option.

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But,

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surprisingly,

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people use that pay by phone option

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like you couldn't believe, especially as it got

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close to the time the payment was due.

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So that was another example of how the

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member feedback

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really changed what we did. And then the

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final thing I'll say is we implemented some

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new technology

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for our marketplace line of business.

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And using the portal, our members were able

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to do recurring payments with their credit card.

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Again, something we didn't have,

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but something members had asked for. And upon

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implementation,

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it was wildly successful.

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And now we have quite a significant

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part of our population who actually has all

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of their

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payments

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prescheduled.

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Well, thank you so much for going into

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such great detail and sharing your experience with

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us.

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Once again, this is Haley Recker with the

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Becker's Payer podcast recorded live at the Becker's

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third annual spring payer issues roundtable.

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Sherry, thank you so much. Thank you.