Consumer Voice Is Essential to Launch of Medicare Advantage Product
// By Sheryl S. Jackson //
There’s no substitute for market research when launching a new product and designing a campaign to support it. Advocate Aurora Health relied heavily on consumer research to support the launch of its Medicare Advantage plan.
The success of Advocate Aurora Health’s launch of a Medicare Advantage product can be attributed to collaboration of business development, marketing, and consumer insights teams within the organization. The effective use of quantitative and qualitative research to gain insight into the consumer journey, and strategic incorporation of these insights into patient communications, gave Aurora Health Care (Advocate Aurora Health is Aurora Health Care’s parent company) and Quartz Health Solutions, the administrative partner of the product, a win as both organizations partnered to enhance high-quality, affordable health care for seniors.
Liz Fitzgerald, integrated marketing coordinator, Advocate Aurora Health
With 16 hospitals and more than 150 clinics, Aurora Health Care serves 30 communities throughout eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. In 2018, Aurora Health Care merged with Advocate Health Care of Illinois to form Advocate Aurora Health, one of the top 12 not-for-profit health systems in the country. Quartz Health Solutions is a health plan management and administrative company that manages four nationally recognized, provider-sponsored health insurance plans.
The first step toward launching the Medicare Advantage product to Aurora Health Care patients was to learn more about the consumers who would make up the target audience, explains Liz Fitzgerald, integrated marketing coordinator for Advocate Aurora Health. “I partnered with our consumer insights team to better understand the Medicare consumer experience,” she says. “Our goal was to leverage these insights to understand consumers’ awareness, perceptions, and purchase intentions, related to Medicare Advantage plans.”