There’s No Choice But To Empower Choice

Industries are transformed by choice. Consider retail shopping as an example. There was a time when the only choice consumers had was the local general store. These stores offered most of what you needed for daily life – groceries, toilet paper, maybe a few toys. They were small and with limited supply and limited options. You could see everything they offered from the front door.

Flash forward to today and we have quick access to multiple big box grocery stores – think Kroger and Publix – that stock everything from fresh produce and prepared foods to household staples like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and batteries. You can get a birthday cake made to order plus the plates, forks, and candles to go with it. There are aisles of product – even entire aisles dedicated to just one category. If you’re looking for tomatoes, you can take your pick of vine ripened tomatoes, organic tomatoes, cherry, grape, or even various canned options like tomato paste, stewed tomatoes, or sauce.

So how did we get from there to here? Retail shopping evolved alongside consumer demand. It added choice by changing its infrastructure. Think about the expansion of suppliers, logistics, buyers, and systems that are necessary for wide-scale efficiency and organization. It brings with it the ability to meet demand for easier access to better products, effectively transforming the industry.

Health insurance, too, is being transformed by choice. We have seen it begin to shift with the ACA. And by 2023, IDC predicts we will begin to see the move towards individualized health plans. That means more choice in products for the individual and customizable options for large groups. What does this mean specifically for payers? How can they create a business model that is consumer-centric, focused on healthy outcomes, and financially sustainable for the long-term?

Follow our blog for a series of perspectives that will dive deeper into how payers can begin to build a stronger infrastructure that is nimble, scalable, and will enable them to embrace consumerism and drive sustainable growth. The series will focus on:

• Mass customization of health insurance products: Paving the way towards a “product of one” model with the ability to control and use your data beginning at the account level.
• Marketing and selling for mass customization: Personalizing the buyer experience and empowering sales teams to adjust plans on-demand, closing more deals faster, and creating a competitive advantage.
• Servicing mass customization: Once your customized products are created and sold, how do you service those plans at scale? Ensuring downstream communications and knowledge sharing with a single source of truth for product data.

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