Healthcare Insurance Industry Recognized For Digital Innovations To The Member Experience

Corporate Insight Names Inaugural Healthcare Monitor Award Winners; Reports Trends, Best Practices

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Jan 17, 2017, 10:27 ET

NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Corporate Insight (CI) announced today the release of its first annual Healthcare Monitor Awards, including major trends and best practices in online and digital innovation in the healthcare insurance industry for 2016.

"The healthcare industry has been gradually catching up to financial services in terms of developing digital strategies to better serve their members," said Dana Peterson, vice president of Monitor Services at Corporate Insight. "In 2016, CI tracked a number of new user-friendly tools and resources that help members stay healthy."

CI's Healthcare Monitor team uses rigorous, proprietary grading software to review key online tools and resources offered by 14 providers. CI highlights leaders in a number of different areas – including coverage and benefits; claims details; locators and estimators; health and wellness educational centers, among others – in correlation with the company's 2016 Digital Healthcare Survey of health insurance plan members.

2016 Gold Monitor Award Winners
Gold medals are presented for online features that exceed Corporate Insight's criteria for overall excellence and usability. In 2016, the following healthcare insurers were awarded gold medals:

Anthem BCBS
BCBS of Illinois
BCBS of Massachusetts
CareFirst BCBS
Cigna
Empire BCBS
UnitedHealthcare

A Look Back at 2016: Summary of Key Trends
As part of its Monitor research services, CI analysts use live accounts at each company covered, identifying member-centric improvements and trends as they occur in real time. The Monitor Awards are a culmination of a year's worth of website tracking and user experience assessment. The following is a summary of the most notable digital healthcare trends from 2016.

Website Revamps & Design Changes; Proliferation of Responsive Design

Fresh website design was a top priority among leading plans, with eight health plans in our coverage group revamping public or member sites in 2016. For example, UnitedHealthcare and Aetna both redesigned their public Medicare sites to feature responsive capabilities, new homepages, and redesigned navigation. In October, Anthem and Empire BCBS revamped their public sites to offer clearer educational offerings.

Teledoctor Services

Telehealth services continue to be top of mind in healthcare discussion and development. Most health plans in the Healthcare Monitor coverage group offer their members access to third-party teledoctor platforms. In February, Cigna introduced MDLive services, while UnitedHealthcare introduced two of the firm's teledoctor providers – Amwell and Doctor on Demand.

Health and Wellness Rewards Programs

In January, Cigna introduced a new responsive Apps & Activities portal and a redesigned Health Assessment where members can monitor their progress from multiple nutrition, fitness, lifestyle and health apps. Members can connect multiple apps such as MyFitnessPal, Jawbone and Fitbit to get a holistic view of their health and wellness. The portal also provides members with personalized app recommendations based on a health questionnaire.

In June, BCBS of Illinois introduced Apple Health Beta to its Well onTarget member platform; plan members can sync their health stats from their Apple Watch, iPhone pedometer or Runtastic apps, directly into the platform.

For more information on Corporate Insight's 2016 Healthcare Monitor Awards Report, please contact:

Joshua Grandy
Director of Public Relations
[email protected]
646-876-7524

About Corporate Insight
Corporate Insight provides competitive intelligence, consulting and user experience (UX) research to the nation's leading insurers, financial services firms and educational institutions. For more than two decades, the firm has published customer experience-focused research and has advised clients on key competitive issues with a focus on improving digital capabilities, along with custom research and consulting services, and digital capabilities audits. CI's Healthcare Division offers competitive intelligence and UX research to help health insurance companies leverage their digital capabilities to improve member satisfaction. To learn more, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Corporate Insight