Press Release

Automated Call Services Provide Health Insurer with a Scalable, Closed Loop Communications Mechanism for its 1.3 Million Members

Burlington, Massachusetts - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Silverlink, the leading provider of automated call services for healthcare, today announced that Medica, a health insurance company serving members in the upper Midwest, has seen dramatic results leveraging its solution to help Medica members become more connected consumers.

Medica sought a way to reinforce member loyalty by providing value through timely, personalized communication, at the same time increasing operational efficiency. The challenge lay in identifying a solution that could scale to serve its 1.3 million members while delivering information tailored to each member’s individual needs. Silverlink helped Medica meet this challenge. The companies implemented a holistic communication initiative that included programs to welcome and educate new members; ensure existing member satisfaction by soliciting input and identifying and quickly responding to any issues; and enhance coordination of benefit administration to increase both member satisfaction and operational efficiency.

The results were dramatic. Welcome calls performed with Silverlink increased member satisfaction while decreasing costs by 90 percent. Inception-to-response member satisfaction communication time was reduced by over 75 percent, enabling the company to respond to member issues in less than 48 hours on average. And a 32 percent increase in coordination of benefit administration communication efficiency led to dramatically fewer incidences of members’ pended claims.

“We are committed to providing our members with the highest quality healthcare,” said Lynn Altmann, Vice President of Customer and Provider Services, Medica. “Effective communication is a critical part of that care. Members who receive the information – and only that information – that is important to them in a timely manner are dramatically more satisfied, and thus loyal. This creates an important competitive differentiator for our company. At the same time, increasing the efficiency of communication has important operational upside. Silverlink is helping us deliver on our commitment to member satisfaction, and the success we have achieved working with them goes directly to our bottom line.”

“The leading health plans know that outbound communications play a significant role in the overall member experience and can drastically affect member satisfaction and loyalty,” said Stan Nowak, president, CEO and founder of Silverlink. “Leaders like Medica are identifying ways to be more personal, informative and effective in their communications. The results Medica has achieved with Silverlink’s automated call programs demonstrate that consumers recognize the value of, and respond more positively to, calls that are personalized to their particular situations. With our focus on healthcare, Silverlink is able to leverage our experience with thousands of outbound call programs to tailor messages and help our customers, including Medica, drive member satisfaction through a more effective and efficient communications program.”

Welcome Calls Achieved on Short Notice

In the past, to augment new member welcome packets, Medica placed new member welcome calls as needed. These were difficult to plan in advance, and had significant manual labor implications. Deploying Silverlink for welcome calls reduced Medica’s overall costs by 90 percent and manual labor costs by nearly 100 percent. Additionally, Medica found these welcome calls increased new member satisfaction and attracted new customers to Medica.

Driving Member Satisfaction Surveys

Member surveys enable health plans to assure satisfaction by identifying issues or needs and responding accordingly. Working with Silverlink, Medica saw immediate results in this area. Overall member response rates to surveys increased 22 percent. With Silverlink Medica can also issue surveys more frequently and in much less time – on average five days as opposed to 24 days without Silverlink. Data collected in these surveys can be processed real-time through Silverlink’s reporting capabilities, enabling Medica to respond to member issues within 48 hours on average. Additionally, eliminating manual data entry increased information integrity. Punctuating these improvements, member satisfaction communication cost with Silverlink dropped eight percent compared to traditional mailers.

More Effective Coordination of Benefits

Coordinating member benefit information is a key administrative task for Medica. The work affects the rapidity of claims processing and the number of claim denials, which contribute directly to member dissatisfaction. Previously carrying out this work via nearly 90,000 pieces of postal mail per year, with Silverlink the company saw a member response rate increase of 32 percent. This reduced the need for follow-on mailers by nearly 35 percent, enabling the processing of 32 percent more responses in the same timeframe.

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